


Dustfall

by CunningCrow, lovvy



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Dragon!Dream, Dragon!George, Dragon!Sapnap, Dragon!Techno, Enemies to Friends, Etis is God, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Minecraft, No Romance, Okay so George is only mentioned for now, Panic Attacks, They become gladiators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27363922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CunningCrow/pseuds/CunningCrow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovvy/pseuds/lovvy
Summary: I caught him right next to his jaw, but I didn’t break skin. He seemed to notice but opted not to comment as he whirled around and his tail connected with my chest. The air was forced out from my lungs, and I crumpled to the ground, clutching my side. I looked up at the wyvern, and his eyes were wide with the first genuine expression I had ever seen him wear: shock.TLDR: Dream gets kidnapped and now he's a gladiator. Technoblade is there. Violence ensues.
Relationships: Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF) & Dave | Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF) & Karl Jacobs (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 216
Kudos: 278





	1. Updraft

“Get up, Sapnap.” I poked him with a talon, but he only cracked open an eye to give me a sideways look before returning to sleep. “Really? The sun’s already up, and George expects us to meet up by the weekend. You’re going to make us late if we don’t get going.”

“Carry me, then,” he grumbled, covering his snout with his wing. “You’re the one with six wings.”

“And you’re the one with two legs,” I said, prodding him again. “Don’t make me stick tree branches in your horns.” His eyes snapped open.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”   
Half an hour later, we were crossing over a misty pine forest. Sapnap’s trail of complaints was muffled by the constant wind that pushed the clouds around us at absurd speeds.

“They say these woods are infested with humans,” he said, flying up closer to me.

“Is that so?” I made a loop around him I knew would get on his nerves. He shot me a glare that confirmed my point.

“There’s been a few dragons that have gone missing in this area. All the smaller, younger ones that can’t defend themselves very well,” Sapnap said with a pretentious air, sticking his snout up. 

“Where did you hear that from, those gossips that like to eat dragonflies down at the pond?” I laughed. Sapnap huffed. “You’re so grumpy today.”

“Maybe that’s because you made me wake up when the sun rose like a maniac.” 

“Is timeliness such a crime?” The wind decided that was the moment to pick up and blast both of us into the clouds again.

“Why is it so windy?” Sapnap whined.

“I don’t know, maybe that’s how the sky works,” I said, then swooped lower to dodge a swing from his pronged tail. 

“Smartass,” he called after me. 

“I do my best,” I grinned. I shook out my primaries, spreading them even further. Another updraft sent me rocketing up in the air, and I took the chance to smack Sapnap in the snout with a tail fin. 

“Okay, now that was just mean,” he grumbled. I laughed and spiraled through a cloud, sending vapor exploding outwards as I burst through the other side. The dew collected on my scales, and I shook it off, making the spines down my back rattle. 

“This is going to be fun, remember? We’re going to get together with George, and he’ll show us around the reef. Then we’re going to find a way to get him up the river, back to the lake near our mountain so that we don’t have to travel a million miles every time we want to meet up.” We had been planning for months to do this, scouring the mountain for anywhere a giant sea dragon could live, coordinating with both the locals and George. Maybe I was a little excited, just a tiny bit. 

“It would be a lot more fun if we didn’t have to wake up at the break of dawn every day to get there,” Sapnap yelled over the roar of the wind.

“Don’t get your horns in a twist- oh, wait.” He opened his mouth to yell at me, but I powered ahead, leaving him in the midst of a cloud. 

He’d catch up. 

* * *

I was probably enjoying this too much. 

The clouds practically parted for me as I climbed through the sky until I broke to the surface and surveyed the blanketed fields of fluffy white. I skimmed my wingtips against the pillars, diving through the valleys. My tail whipped through the air, maintaining and adjusting the direction dictated by my tertiaries. 

I never felt freer than when I was in the sky. I did a few loops, dragging my talons through the vapor like it was an ocean, and in many ways it was. Channelling my inner water dragon, I dove back into the foaming sea of cloud.

I descended down over the treetops, practically swimming through the mist as I looked around.

Where was Sapnap?

The wind rushed again, and the forest below writhed in response. A few droplets of rain pattered against my scales, dragging my attention away from the absence of my friend. I looked up at the slate grey sky, and I frowned.

Voices were carried to my ears by the wind, shouts in what sounded like human. I cocked my head to the side curiously, looking down at the forest. 

The rumours weren’t true, were they? Sapnap would never let me hear the end of this. 

A sharp pain erupted in my tail as something slammed into it. I jerked back and looked down at a strange weapon of heavy metal balls attached to chains wrapped around my tail and its fins. 

“Ow,” I said brilliantly and began to spiral to the earth, my wings trying and failing to maintain my height without control as the weighted balls pulled me down. I think I was bleeding. 

Every single tree seemed to want to participate in my fall. I smacked into five at least, until the ground greeted me by knocking the wind out of my lungs and making my head spin. 

Before I could regain my thoughts, the shouts erupted again, and I was surrounded by stomping feet and the shrieking of weapons being drawn that only worsened my headache. I only understood a few broken words of their tongue, and I didn’t like what I heard.

“Get… arrow… dangerous…” 

“I know humans and dragons don’t normally get along, but can’t we just talk this one through?” I asked, rubbing the side of my throbbing head as I lowered into a defensive stance.

They responded by shooting me in the side with… something. An arrow? I had never seen one up close before, and I wasn’t especially thrilled to see one poking out from between the plates in my chest. 

“Oh, come on, now,” I slurred before my legs gave out beneath me. The pain that rocked my body dulled away into the sweeping tides of something more gentle, but even more disorienting. Was the arrow poisoned?

I hoped Sapnap was okay.

Rough hands pushed me, and with some muddled amusement, I smiled as they struggled to pick me up. There were a few yells of what seemed like fear that only made my grin wider, and I felt something hit my face. It might’ve hurt if I could actually feel anything.

“Monster… fangs,” I managed to hear. Black ebbed at my vision, but I could catch the shine of a steel helmet, shaped in the likeness of a snarling dragon.

I was dropped onto something wooden that rocked slightly beneath me, and all that I could make out before the darkness took me was the gleam of pink scales and the clink of chains. 


	2. Sleet

I woke up to banging and annoyed mumbles. My joints were stiff and I faintly felt the uncomfortable squeeze of metal around my neck. My side where the arrow had hit me only stung lightly, and my snout only twinged every couple of times, but my tail was a constant source of throbbing pain. I opened my eyes after a few minutes spent trying to cover my ears to block out the constant sound of human voices and the squeaking of the wagon wheels. As soon as I was able to process my surroundings, I stood up on shaky legs.

I was in a metal cage on a moving wagon. I had to have been far from where I got shot down, and the constant jostling of the wagon only made my headache all that worse. 

The path we rode down offered some small relief from my pains, with tall wildflowers dotting the edges that soon gave in to more of the thick forest. Mist ate at the distance, moss and lichens smothering the trees like blankets that glowed ever so faintly with the trademark sign to indicate a nearby forest dragon. It would have been calming if circumstances were different.

“So, you’re finally awake,” yawned a low voice. I jumped, which made my entire body protest, and I turned to face the source of my company. Laying on the floor less than a foot away was a spiked, tired-looking wyvern with dull pink scales. He had two large tusks jutting out from his bottom jaw that made his gruff voice just a bit odd to listen to with the slightest lisp. Down his back ran two lines of spikes that started at his head and wound down to a tail that was wrapped in them. 

I replied hesitantly with a nod and laid back down. The wyvern didn’t seem too concerned about his current situation.

“What’s your name?” I asked. He snorted and looked away. We spent the rest of the ride in silence aside from the occasional indecipherable quips from humans checking on us.

* * *

It was relieving to be out of the wagon, but there was still the heavy steel collar around my neck. My wings felt like they were being clamped in a folded position by more chains, but the humans wouldn’t let me look. I was quickly muzzled once the wagon stopped and was led into a rather intimidating looking structure, a long building that wrapped around the foot of a valley with a net that stretched over the entire place, gleaming in what little sunlight escaped the clouds.

I didn’t get to see much else of the outside as I was led down a narrow, winding staircase with the wyvern. I contemplated running until the ring of humans all drew swords and axes, and I decided perhaps I wanted to keep my head. The corridors at the bottom of the stairs were much wider and looked to be designed for much larger dragons. In the beginning, the walls were lined with generously placed torches and intricately carved scenes and art pieces of fighting dragons. Now all I was seeing was plain dirt and stone with crumbling wooden pillars to keep it from collapsing.

I was getting bored, and there was a limp starting to develop in my steps. Being led through identical halls and countless guarded iron doors was starting to mess with my head, too. I was taken through yet another door, of course no different from the others.

The room I was led into was long and seemed to loop, with barred cells lining every wall. Immediately after the door creaked open, all I could hear was whimpers and cries for help. I started to feel sick when I walked past the third cell with a dragon infected with scale rot. The pungent smell of decay made me breathe out through my mouth in an attempt to get away from it.

I was roughly shoved into what seemed to be a recently vacated cage along with the wyvern, who looked vastly unbothered. Just being around him was starting to piss me off. 

* * *

We were chained to the walls, and my wings were finally freed from what looked like silver netting. The wyvern was doing his best at pacing in the limited space while trying to not get tangled in his chains from walking back and forth repeatedly. 

“Can you stop that?” I snapped. The scraping of metal on the stone was giving me another headache, and the dragon had been moving around non-stop for almost an hour. He opened his mouth to argue before he was interrupted by the cage door opening.

Forgetting about our conflict entirely, we both looked at the brown-haired human standing in the doorway. Over his forearm, he was carrying two collars that sparkled with enchantment. I hissed when he took a step towards me. He jumped back with wide eyes and took another step. He began to mutter panicked words to himself, intermixed with high-pitched noises I think were laughs, but they were anxious.

With a quick and not-so-graceful movement, the human scampered up to slap one of the collars around my neck. I growled and shot forward to snap at him. His grip on the metal tightened and he pursed his lips. I curled my top lip in a snarl. He nearly fell trying to get back fast enough to stay unharmed. 

“Calm,” he shuddered and began to approach me again. I heard a dark laugh from the wyvern. In an uncharacteristic moment of bravery, the human ran to my side and wrapped his arms around my neck to keep me from turning enough to hurt him. 

The metal was secured around my neck and the human let out a triumphant cackle. I shook my head to dislodge him, and his laugh was cut short when his back hit the floor and his expression was replaced with one of fear.

I roared and scratched at the collar with defiance as the enchantment set in. I fell down and tried to scratch the collar against the floor as if it’d do something I couldn’t. Enchantments were never fun to deal with. And because of this one, the human was able to crawl away from me. Little rat.

His heavy breathing easily overpowered most of the sounds from other creatures in neighbouring cells. He was holding the collar to his chest as he took baby steps towards the wyvern. The dragon snarled and beat his spiked tail on the floor.

The human chuckled nervously with a few more hesitant steps. The wyvern lowered himself to the ground and gingerly tapped his tail on the floor a few more times. That seemed to greatly reassure the human, and he took larger strides.

He was much more relaxed now, and he lowered his shoulders when he knelt to put the collar on the wyvern. I tilted my head, squinting to see them more clearly.

The next second, the human was on the ground with his shirt caught in the dragon’s mouth. He dragged him back and lifted him up only to drop him again. The human shrieked and clawed at the floor while tall rows of yellow-stained teeth sank into his calf. I winced at the noise, but it seemed to only make the wyvern bite down harder.

I didn’t particularly like the human, but he was considerably smaller than the others we’d seen. For all I knew, he could’ve been a kid. He was crying now, too, red-faced and hitting the wyvern’s snout with his leftover strength. 

It was but a few seconds before more humans came to investigate the screams. The dragon was quickly shot with another one of those arrows while the sobbing human was carried away. I watched another human put the collar on the pink dragon, who groggily tried to scare them away. It was almost funny if I ignored the collar around my own neck.

The humans eyed me every now and then uneasily while they left the cell. The one wearing the dragon helmet leaned against the bars and gave me a long look, and I wanted to rip it off his face. 

“I guess we’re stuck with each other, now,” the wyvern slurred before he collapsed on the stone ground, the effects of the arrow taking hold. 

“I guess we are.” I sat back in the corner of the cell.

I wondered where Sapnap was if he and George were okay. I wondered if I was ever going to get out of this. I wondered what _this_ was.

I wondered if I was ever going to be free again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was proof-read by my cat Waffle, you are all in good paws


	3. Jet Streams

“I can’t understand what you’re trying to tell me to do,” I said to the dragon-helmed human as he pointed the tip of his sword at me. My tail whipped up dust while I swept it back and forth, the strange arena we were in feeling more claustrophobic than open. 

“Fight,” he said. A growl rumbled in my chest, but I just stood there. That seemed to make him angry. Fine, let him be.

“Tauntin’ doesn’t usually end well,” the wyvern said from my other side. I glanced at him, standing there looking tranquilly as if he was simply watching the birds. He returned the look, and I grit my teeth.

“What, because mauling some kid is so much better?” I replied. The human muttered something and walked forward, raising his sword like he was about to use it. 

I crouched, hunching my shoulders and spreading my wings. The wyvern snorted, and I chose to ignore him. The human swung his sword at my legs, but I leapt up into the sky, pumping my wings and gaining as much air as the net overhead would allow. Curiously, I reached out a talon and received a jet of sparks racing up my foreleg.

“Fuck!” I yelped, dropping a few feet and shaking out my talons. The wyvern had thrown back his head and was laughing at a higher pitch than I thought him capable. The human was advancing on him, now, but didn’t even get the chance to attempt a blow before the wyvern joined me in the sky.

The human sheathed his sword and placed his hands on his hips, glowering up at us. The younger one the wyvern took a chunk out of yesterday hobbled up next to him, and they exchanged a few words. The rat boy gave him a strange contraption I didn’t recognise, something similar to a bow but smaller and sideways with additional pieces that I couldn’t make out from this height.

“I don’t know what he expected,” the wyvern said, flying up to my side. His wings were massive, around the same size as my primaries. The scales sparkled like a million little gems, which seemed to conflict vastly with his personality.

“What is he trying to do with us, anyway?” I asked. “Why are we even here?” The wyvern squinted at me.

“You mean you haven’t heard of the dragon fighting rings?” Before I got the chance to fully process that, an arrow whistled by my horn. I jolted back, and the two of us looped around. At least, we tried to. Both of our tails, still healing from the chain-and-ball weapons used to capture us, didn’t cooperate with our coordination. 

The wyvern was caught on his back and had to do a spastic half-roll to land in the dust a hundred feet below. I was luckier, with my extra wings, but it turned out they worked more against me than for me, and I over-compensated. I rammed up against the net trying to right myself and roared in pain as lightning arced down my scales. My muscles went stiff and for the second time in as many days, I plummeted to the ground.

Smooth stone isn’t as forgiving as the forest floor, a fact I discovered as what felt like every bone in my body shattered on impact. 

“Drama queen,” the human said in Indati, which surprised me enough to make me crack open an eye. He was standing in front of me, arms crossed, arrow-thing in hand. Behind him crept the rat boy. 

I pulled myself shakily to my feet, feeling like my legs were going to give out. To my mild relief, they didn’t. 

“Nice one,” the wyvern said.

“Can you stop?” I snapped, talons scraping against the stone. The human’s eyes flicked between the two of us. My tail lashed behind me, something that definitely didn’t help the healing process.

“We’re stuck here, greenie, it’s only going to get worse from here,” the wyvern replied gruffly. 

“Yeah, but you adding snarky comments every time I slip up doesn’t help anything.” I turned away from the humans, facing the wyvern. “You don’t even know my name.”

“I don’t want to,” the wyvern said. “It’ll only get in the way when we inevitably kill each other.” He lowered his head, making his horns and spikes point out at me.

“You seem so sure.” Was I really going to do this?

“Fight,” the human said again. 

So be it.

I reared back my head and bared my fangs, lashing out with my talons. 

He was quick. Very quick.

He dodged my claws, circling around to my back and sweeping out with his tail. I outnumbered him in limbs, no matter how we counted it. However, he also had a giant-ass tail covered in spikes and he moved faster than I could track, so it was relatively fair. 

“Do you really want to do this?” he asked as the spikes collided with my hind legs, and I bit back a snarl. He had hit me with the blunt ends, but it still hurt like a bitch.

I span around, my body protesting. I flexed my wrists and the spikes that ran down them lifted. I brought my talons down on him, and I managed to swipe him close to his shoulder. He was tired, I could tell. As was I.

“Oh, so _ now _ you don’t want to fight?” I said. He shifted his jaw as he coiled back, his tusks dipping before he surged up at me, ramming me in the chest and pushing me onto my back. 

I scrambled to get my legs up on his belly as he scratched at mine, claw shrieking against scaled chest plate. When I found purchase, I shoved him off as hard as I could manage, launching him a few yards in the air. 

The rat boy gasped and laughed before the elder turned and gave him a look. I paid them as little attention as I could manage. They were really just spectators at this point.

The wyvern swooped down overhead, and I jumped up to meet him, grabbing him by the shoulders, beating his wings with mine and dragging him down. 

Use your abilities to your advantage, never let them get the upper hand. That was how this worked. Or at least, that was what Sapnap would parrot every time I beat him. Wyverns all fight the same.

I tackled the wyvern to the ground, and now I was the one pinning him down. Which was when I realised I had no idea what I was going to do.

“Don’t hesitate,” the wyvern said and flipped us over again. 

“What, are you going to kill me?” I said haughtily. He squinted at me, then shrugged and went back to looking bored, hopping off of my chest and sitting back on his haunches, curling his tail around his legs like he hadn’t just been about to tear my throat out. 

“...lose...bet,” I understood from the human, rubbing his forehead. The younger laughed, his face turning red. The wyvern thumped his tail on the ground and he shrieked, jumping and sliding behind the human who was now laughing at him. 

Maybe there was some hope for this day.

* * *

My body screamed at me, and it was all I could do to keep standing. The second we got back to the cage, I collapsed in a heap and barely protested as the younger human reattached the chains from the collar to the back wall. 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, noting the daggers of pain that erupted in my chest. Probably from the wyvern’s claws, or maybe from where I hit the ground again.

I felt a small pat on my snout, and the door to the cell creaked closed. There came the familiar clinking of chains as the wyvern resumed his pacing. 

“Of all the things you could be doing right now, you choose walking back and forth?” I said. 

“I’m trying to think,” the wyvern muttered.

“Think quieter.” 

“Stop getting in my way, then.” 

“You’re the one that keeps making things harder,” I yelled. The wyvern stopped in his pacing and shot me a withering glare.

“You decided that, after having gotten electrocuted and falling to the ground, you were going to start a fight. That’s not on me, that’s on you.” I struggled to get back up on my feet but my legs just weren’t having it. “Stop, you’re only going to hurt yourself,” I growled in defeat and gave up, curling into a grumpy lump of scales.

“I hate you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Caramelldansen for being Crow's go-to song to write fight scenes


	4. Doldrums

I shook my wings out, wincing when the silver netting wrapped around them cut into my primaries. The wyvern was being led next to me, too close for comfort as his wing tapped my back legs every few steps. The muzzles on our snouts kept us from opening our mouths enough to try anything at all. 

We were sat as close to the arena as possible in a hallway that wrapped around it in a ring, with a cage-like window separating it and the arena itself. I grimaced as I recalled the electric encounter with the net not long ago. The wyvern was thankfully led farther away from me as I was sandwiched between two much larger dragons. I didn’t look at them much, instead focusing on the opening gates.

A relatively small two-headed dragon emerged, and it looked to be fighting itself more than anything else. Its pattern of black and gold scales arced almost like lightning across its stocky body. The left head had ridged, curled horns and looked thoroughly pissed off, biting at the other head and hissing. The right head had much more crooked horns that pointed out at the ends. It looked worn out and scared, and I almost felt bad. 

Despite their squabbling, the dragon’s first instinct was to try and escape. They ran and jumped into flight, frantically moving their four wings to look for weak spots in the dome. The right head cried out in frustration.

On the opposite side, another gate creaked open and out came a large, teal and white sea dragon with broad fins running down its back. Its scales were dull and covered in fading scars, and the skin stretched between its wings was torn and ragged. 

The younger dragon lowered themselves to the ground, with the two heads turning to talk to each other. The ram head still looked confident, making firm and precise movements as they walked. The head with winding horns looked back and forth between its companion and the newcomer skittishly.

A human stood on the sidelines, but he held a sword. He shouted something lost to screams and jeers from the hundreds lining the outside of the ring, looking up at another human standing on a platform above the whole ring. He wore a golden crown. He turned to the dragons, and yelled something too distant to make out. The larger dragon spat out a roar and barreled at the other, slamming into it with enough force to send it sprawling backwards into the wall. I could hear something snap, maybe bone.

The right head whined in pain, but the left snapped its fangs and clamped its jaws around the attacker’s neck. It shrieked and backed up, giving them enough room to slip out of its grasp.

The crowd howled their approval, and the ram head seemed to bask in it. The sea dragon took this moment to grab both heads by the neck and pin them down on the ground. They struggled, but they couldn’t break the grasp.

“The tail, get the tail,” I heard the wyvern mutter. I turned to look at him, but he was staring intently at the fight before us.

The sea dragon lowered its jaws, leaning over the necks, poised to bite down. I recoiled, bracing myself for the inevitable bloodshed, but it didn’t land.

It fell to the ground, screeching and flailing in agony. The collar glowed bright purple, sparks flying every few seconds. In that time, humans flooded into the ring, silver nets, chains, and muzzles in hand that they deftly applied before any of the dragons had a chance to move. 

“We could have had that,” the ram horned head growled to the other as they were led past us back to the bordering hall. The winding horned head had broken a horn in the fight, probably from when the sea dragon smashed them into the wall. 

“It’s not my fault you decided to get cocky,” the other replied. The two of them growled at each other, but a human, the same that initiated the fight, snapped his fingers and yelled at them. They turned their aggression to him, and as they disappeared down one of the halls I heard more yelling.

“Could you imagine having to share a body?” the wyvern said, being led beside me. I was made to join him by prodding spears. 

“I would have attempted to kill you so many times,” I said. 

“If history proves true, you wouldn’t’ve survived the night,” the wyvern grinned. Etis, I wanted to hit him so badly. 

* * *

In the room with the cages, I briefly saw the two-headed dragon again. The right head was being somewhat held up by the other. For a few seconds, I made eye contact with it in that dreary state before I was being pushed back into my cage. 

I opened and closed my mouth a few times as the rat boy removed my muzzle with trembling hands. He stepped to my side, letting the dragon-helmed human remove the wyvern’s muzzle while he took the netting off of my wings.

I turned my neck back to the human, gently nudging him with my snout. He jumped with a high-pitched squeak, clutching the netting to his chest. I snorted and smiled at him, and he visibly relaxed. Rat boy reached out and gave the side of my neck a few hesitant pats, smiling to himself. 

Laying my head on the floor, I looked at the other human. I couldn’t really see his face through the helmet in this low light, but I could make out enough of his mouth to know he was frowning at the kid. He took a few steps towards me, reaching out to grab the boy’s arm. 

I watched idly as the older human pulled him to his feet roughly. The netting dropped to the ground and the boy let out a noise of surprise, looking at the masked man. He shoved the kid out of the cage, spewing incomprehensible words at him that seemed to make him flinch away. Prick.

* * *

I was in the arena again. This time, the ground was littered with various pillars and obstacles. The masked human was back with the rat boy. He seemed to be limping less, at least. The pillars looked to be made of a white stone, and each was covered in claw marks, weathered from time.

I scrambled onto one of the shorter pillars, awkwardly clamping my claws around it to stay steady. My tail still hurt, and it was making it that much harder to balance. The younger human was watching intently. I crouched down, staring at the second pillar ahead of me. 

Briefly wiggling my hind legs, I thought back to when Sapnap would compare me to a cat while we leapt between trees. I jumped to the next pillar, nearly going over it. A small whoop brought my attention back to the humans. The smaller one looked excited, while the other looked on with his dragon helmet, expressionless.

I tilted my head at the rat boy. He was grinning widely at me with his arms above his head, hands clenched into fists. The taller human said something to him before leaving the arena. We were alone.

As soon as the door shut, the boy’s eyes got wider. More panicked. I ignored him, instead making my way to another pillar. My tail was always tensed as I had nowhere to put it, and it was starting to hurt like hell. I turned back to the human. He was sitting on the ground now, drawing shapes in the dirt. 

I leapt from the pillar, opening my wings and gliding down, landing a good distance from him. Trotting forward, I came up to his side and looked at the ground. In front of him was a crudely drawn dragon’s head with carefully placed spikes and a little scar over the snout. It reminded me of… me. 

The drawing wasn’t good, but the fact that it  _ could  _ be me made me let out an excited hum. The boy jumped, nearly smudging the dirt. I moved under his arm to look closer, halfway in his lap as I sniffed at the ground. I’d never been this close to a human and been comfortable with it. That thought alone made me freeze up a bit.

He rested his hand on my back, and I laid down. His other hand went to poke at my wings as he talked to himself softly. I brought my front leg out, stretching one claw to start making small shapes in the dirt. Every once in a while, I’d look back at the boy for a few seconds to study his face. After a minute or so, my lacklustre drawing of the human was done. 

I turned and nudged him, growling and gesturing at the ground. He gasped and smiled in awe. He began to scratch a spot behind one of my horns as he examined the drawing further. I leaned into the touch, closing my eyes and letting myself actually relax. The human retrieved something from his jacket, holding it to my mouth. Without opening my eyes, I took it. It was chicken, and it was much fresher than what I was fed on a daily basis.

It wasn’t long before I drifted to sleep. The last thing I thought of was the warmth of the human holding onto me like a pet. It was nice, comforting, if a little demeaning, but it was more than I could have hoped for. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, crow here, i really want another sword but i can't decide what kind. this has no relevance to the chapter, just thought you all should know


	5. Storm Surge

“You look like an owl trying to scare away a fox,” the wyvern said, circling me. His tail flicked back and forth, almost playful if not for the constant shifting in his tusks. He squinted slightly, and I recognised this as the sign he was about to attack.

My assumption came to fruition, and he lunged at me, spreading his jaws and exposing rows upon rows of his yellow fangs. I ducked and rammed up at his chest with my back spikes, less in an effort to hurt him and more to get him away from me. 

He grunted and crouched low when he landed, and I could see a few small scratches down his chest. Along came the guilt that washed over me, but I shook it away and lowered my stance, and we resumed the circling.

“You shouldn’t have let me get that close to you,” he said. I tapped my claws against the stone in reply.

Leaning against the wall was the helmeted human, the rat boy beside him. I drew back my lips and gave them a mildly aggressive smile. 

“Now you’re getting distracted.” The wyvern’s tail walloped me upside the head, and I stumbled forward. 

“Hey!” I yelled.

“Are you going to stand there sunbathin’, or are you going to fight?” he shot back. “You were so eager not that long ago.”

“I don’t want to be doing any of this,” I said. “I don’t want to be fighting, much less be here in the first place.” I wrapped my talons around the collar, and of course, it did nothing. 

“Too bad, princess, you’re stuck here. You saw that duel yesterday, they’re going to make us do that, too, whether you like it or not.” He made a move for my tail, but I drew it away, returning a swipe at his. 

“Why does it matter so much to you, then, if I fight you?” I growled. “Don’t you want to eliminate the competition?” The wyvern sighed angrily, and leapt up, soaring over me and landing on my other side, surging upward with his horns and tusks. I jumped up, flaring out my wings. 

The circling continued.

“Believe it or not, but I don’t actually want to kill you all that much,” the wyvern said in his flat monotone. “In a perfect world, neither of us have to die.”

“That statistic isn’t looking very likely,” I said, flicking sand into his eyes with my tail, slashing out with my claws. 

I caught him right next to his jaw, but I didn’t break skin. He seemed to notice but opted not to comment as he whirled around and his tail connected with my chest. The air was forced out from my lungs, and I crumpled to the ground, clutching my side. I looked up at the wyvern, and his eyes were wide with the first genuine expression I had ever seen him wear: shock. 

“I thought you were goin’ to dodge,” he said, edging forward, but I grunted and pushed myself back up. Behind me, I could hear the rat boy gasp. The sand was stained with dark green blood, but I ignored it. 

“If you’re trying not to kill me, try harder,” I said through gritted teeth. The wyvern took another few steps in, and when he was close enough I pounced, taking his neck in my jaws and shoving him against the ground, pinning his wings down with my forelegs. 

I was feeling pretty good about myself, until I felt something snake around my neck, just below my collar. And it squeezed. 

The ground met my back as the wyvern’s tail trapped me in a chokehold. I didn’t dare shift for fear of the spikes cutting into me, but I wanted to. My side was starting to become more vocal in its pain, but I managed to shove it to the side and my mind raced to find ways to get out of this.

“You need to stop,” the wyvern warned.

“No.” I flung out a wing, and while he reared back from it, his tail loosened. I took the chance and slipped out, but the spikes left scratches along my throat. 

“I’m serious.” I lowered my stance and the world seemed to tilt a bit further to the left than I was comfortable with, but I managed to stay on my feet.

“What are you going to do about it,” I panted, clawing out at him. He easily sidestepped, and I fell to the ground. 

Breathing hurt. It hurt a lot. I think the rat boy was screaming. 

“Ha, I win,” I said, and the world went blurry.

* * *

“...idiot… bloodloss.” I cracked open my eye, and through a haze of pain, I could see the helmed man talking to a woman, a green blob that may have been a dragon wrapped around her shoulders. 

I was laying on a bed of straw, which was in stark contrast to the bare stone I’d had for the past few days. I yearned for the pelts we had back in the den, but I knew that was expecting too much from this miserable place. 

Something was leaning against me. It was warm and comparatively small. I looked over, and it was the rat boy, curled up against my forelegs, snoring softly. Then I saw the bandages, thick and layered over my side. The wings made the wrapping awkward, but they crossed over where the wyvern had struck me with his tail. There was already green staining through the white.

“You’re up,” the helmeted human said, and I turned to face him. He looked at me coolly, crossing his arms. 

I blinked slowly at him, a bit more aggravatingly than was probably safe, but I was in the infirmary anyway so what did it matter. His face twitched, but the woman cleared her throat, and he turned away.

“Hello, young one,” the woman said in lightly accented Indati. She reached out a hand to my muzzle, but I snarled at her. The blob on her shoulder, indeed a forest dragon, hissed right back.

“Do you want help or not?” the helmeted man interjected in clunkier Indati. I snorted and rested my chin on my talons. The woman ran her hands over my horns, gently loosening the muzzle to touch the still-healing cut across my snout. I growled softly, but she seemed to understand it wasn’t directed at her and instead at the twinge of pain. 

She shook awake the rat boy, who jumped about three feet in the air. When he came to his senses, he started that high-pitched, frantic laugh, covering his face. The woman grinned at him, saying a few words in their tongue. He nodded rapidly and backed up behind the man.

“Your bandages need changing,” the woman informed me. I flicked my tail, to which she raised an eyebrow. “If you want an infection, be my guest.” I didn’t respond. 

She began to pull at the bandages, and I bit back a hiss. The forest dragon tilted its head at me.

“Stop being a baby,” it said. I snapped my teeth at it as much as the muzzle would allow and lunged out, but evidently, my collar had been chained to the wall, so I only succeeded in choking. The dragon cackled and scampered to the woman’s other shoulder, who was beginning to look more annoyed than anything. “Fucking idiot.”

“Don’t make me leave you in the backroom,” the woman scolded. The dragon gave her a little smug smile. I contemplated trying to wrestle off my muzzle and eat them but decided against it. I wasn’t overly keen on having a sword introduced to my neck.

“Maybe this will motivate you to stop acting like a fool and fight,” the masked man said. I gave him the side-eye. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one that gets into fights and loses. I’m starting to think the other one’s the only competent fighter in the ring.” I wanted to reply, but my mouth was still muzzled shut so the best I could do was bare my teeth at him. “Keep growling, hotshot, it’s not going to save you when Ripper tears your throat out.”

“If you don’t stop provoking him, I’m going to kick you all out,” the woman said, pulling away the last of the bandages. I glanced at my side and immediately looked away.

The spikes hadn’t done me any favors, and now all the scales that had been struck had shattered, genuinely shattered. The skin beneath had been torn open on serrated edges I hadn’t known the spikes had. They were still leaking blood, and nausea coiled in my gut.

That was  _ me _ . That ruined flesh was  _ mine _ . 

The rat boy looked out over the man’s shoulder, and his face turned as green as my scales. He turned and ran over to one of the buckets, emptying the contents of his stomach. 

“That wyvern really did a number on you, didn’t he,” the woman tutted. The forest dragon inched down her arm, picked a bit of moss of its back, and placed it into her outstretched hand. She pressed it into the wound. 

I roared, burying my talons in the hay that screeched against the stone below. My head spun, and I blinked a couple of times before I felt I could breathe correctly again.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” the forest dragon chirped.

“I’m going to eliminate your bloodline,” I said weakly around the muzzle before resting my head in the straw in an effort to hide the shaking in my talons. 

“You can’t eliminate anything right now,” the man said. I growled again but left it at that. No more fights today. 

Sapnap would laugh at me. As would George. Etis, I missed them. I missed being free.

The rat boy ran up and wrapped his arms around my neck in an awkward hug as he struggled to avoid the spikes along my neck and back.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear. I watched him as he walked away with the man, talking and laughing in their language. But he slid me a small, secret look, and I found myself staring after the two of them. 

What kind of kid speaks Indati?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe sleep deprivation go brrrrrrr


	6. Tropical Depression

I shifted my weight between my wings, examining the arena while I waited for the humans to return. I could still see green-stained sand from the six-winged idiot a few days ago. He was still in the infirmary, which made things in the cage quiet, quiet enough to get under my scales more than he did. I’d never tell him that, though.

A sharp whistle caught my attention, and I slowly turned to face its source. The dragon-helmed human was back with the younger boy. The boy was holding an axe with shaking hands, and I wondered for a brief moment if he was my opponent. As soon as I processed the thought, I had to fight the urge to laugh. The kid looked like he’d been to hell and back and all I did was push him around. At least he was good at remembering.

The taller human held his hand out, prompting the boy to hand him the axe. I hummed, watching him pick up a small, round shield. The boy scurried away to the sidelines. I was somewhat disappointed, intimidation was half of the fun. I gave the human a long, calculating look. He was trying to stare me down. Adorable.

The human stood on the opposite side of the arena, waiting for me to move. I gazed back at him, unimpressed. The fingers around the hilt of his axe tightened. He was nervous, no matter how well hidden. He should be. Humans deserve no mercy.

We sat in silence for a minute or two before the human began advancing towards me with the axe slung over his shoulder.

He swung the weapon at me, and I moved back to avoid it, allowing him the satisfaction of letting it scrape across my chest plates. He spun around, using momentum to swing again. The axe sliced a deep cut into my shoulder, one I was less pleased with. I squinted and rammed my head into his chest, knocking him out of his stance. The human quickly brought his shield down onto the back of my neck, taking the opportunity to jump away from me. 

I snorted with contempt, fixing my posture and shaking out my neck. The human’s mask mocked me, and I lunged at him, working to wrap my wings around him. I realised I was outmatched when he dodged me with a smooth step and brought the pommel of the axe down on the back of my neck between my horns. 

The human waved his hand dismissively and walked back to the boy, dropping his axe and shield while shaking his head. He said something to a figure behind the bars to the hallway.

I stood up, shaking out my horns to ward away the throbbing ache. I should’ve listened to my own advice, but it was a little too late to take that back. My chest heaved as I regained my breath, and I barely had time to rest before the gate behind me was thrown open. 

I spun around, making slow moves to back away as a sea dragon prowled out of the darkness. 

It looked to be the same as the one from the fight with the two-headed fool. He was much more sickly, and I could see rogue patches of scale rot setting into his front legs. Blood that had been blackened from exposure to air oozed from the cracks across the scales on his feet, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

“Fight!” The older human called out. I jumped, hastily flapping my wings to put distance between the dragon and me. He stayed on the ground, watchful eyes pinned on me. I dropped back down to the ground. This dragon, I already knew, went for the kill immediately. 

He barreled towards me, and I waited until I could see the dull gleam of weathered scales. I ran right back at him, low to the ground. He was close to twice my size, giving him a clear advantage as our bodies collided. I felt several sharp fins cut into my sides as he pushed me onto my back, using his back legs to pin my wings to the dusty stone. 

Same move as he used against the two-headed dragon, though now I was flipped to my front. Uncreative, come on.

My horns were grabbed by his front talons; he was more than ready to snap my neck. I slammed my tail against his back legs, the stumble allowing me to roll him onto his side. I hopped up and latched onto his neck, making sure to sink my tusks into the terribly soft flesh. 

I coughed and spat out as much of his bitter blood as I could. Taking a few steps back, I tried to leave it at that. The dragon didn’t move. I only hoped he was dead as the humans came to stand by me. The boy had his hands pressed over his mouth, face a sickly shade of green close to what the six-winged one turned after he went and let himself get hit by my tail. The man’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, which brought me close to laughing. 

“When you draw blood,” he started with notably cumbersome Indati, “you have to finish it. There is no mercy here.” I looked back to the dragon before us. He was still breathing. I was willing to kill another dragon, but I took no pleasure from it. However, the killing wasn‘t the problem here; the scale rot was the biggest issue for me. The human watched me, gesturing to the dragon again and again.

I glared at him and walked around the other side of the dragon so I was facing the humans. I tilted my head and leaned down, nestling my tusks deep into the sea dragon’s throat. With a violent jerk, I threw my head into the air to ensure that both humans had at least some blood thrown onto them. 

The boy cried out in surprise, and even the older human seemed to jump a bit. I gleaned some grim satisfaction before he had me on the ground again, nets fastened over my wings and a muzzle over my blood-soaked snout. The stench was already setting in, and I wanted to gag. Did he really want us dead that bad?

“Don’t be so messy next time,” the human managed to say. I wanted so badly to correct his accent, but that was slightly impossible given the circumstances. I settled for a slight squint and tail-flick. He waved more humans over, and they led me back to the cell at spearpoint. All I could smell was infected blood and the hints of the green one’s mixed in the background. 

I wanted to burn this whole place to the fucking ground. 

* * *

The loneliness was making me lose my mind, even if I would never admit to it. Being chained to the back wall of the cage again with the nauseating feeling of enchantment dulling my senses, I would rather claw out my eyes than remain alone. I needed  _ something _ to do,  _ someone  _ to talk to, _ anything _ . Not only that, but I was growing almost concerned about the green dragon. It had been a few days, and there was still no sign of him.

I almost felt bad for hurting him, but he pushed himself too far. I was blameless, really, I was. I definitely wasn‘t spending the time not used for planning drowning in guilt. No, there was none of that. 

Mostly. 

The hollow rattling of bone striking metal caught my attention. I looked up quickly, wincing as my neck twinged in pain from the duel earlier. The masked human walked up to the cage, holding one arm behind his back.

“It’s generally tradition to keep this after your first arena kill.“ He presented the object hidden behind him, and I was greeted by the skeletal grin I recognised from the sea dragon. He set the skull down and slid it through the bars. 

With a wing-talon, I reached out and picked it up, gazing into the empty sockets for eyes. 

”What do you expect me to do with this? Wear it as a crown?” He laughed. 

“Doesn’t matter to me. Just don’t choke on it, you’re my best fighter,” he said. I tilted my head back. 

“Whoever said I would fight for you?” His eyes flared, and I let a smirk pull at the corners of my mouth. He stalked away, but I could hear him mutter something under his breath in that language I never bothered to learn. 

I mean, I had a point. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> techno pov pog


	7. Cold Front

“Back already?” the wyvern drawled from beneath folded wings. He laid in the corner of the cell, curled in on himself. I could feel why; it was freezing. 

I limped into the cell, letting the rat boy attach the chains. As he removed the muzzle from my snout and the nets from my wings and left us, I looked over at my cellmate. 

“I thought you were a fire dragon,” I said curiously.

“You thought wrong,” he grumbled in reply, his wings shifting slightly so I could see the glint of his eyes glaring at me. “Did they have fires in the infirmary so your little toesies didn’t get cold?”

“No, just a temperamental magma dragon that kept eating the foundation,” I said, sitting back on my legs, wincing at the spark of pain in my side. It had gone down a lot in the week since the wyvern had hit me, to the point where I no longer had to wear bandages. The scales were marred with deep, angry scars, though, and it hurt more to look at than they actually were. The golden eyes settled on the marks, and the winds snapped shut.

I didn’t have the energy to dissect what  _ that _ was about and instead settled down in the other corner. 

“What I would give to be a fire dragon,” I muttered.

“What are you, then?” came the wyvern’s muffled voice. I looked over at him again. Was this him feeling remorse? Was he even capable of feeling remorse?

“Not sure yet,” I said. “I was born a sky dragon, but by the times my spikes and fins grew in, we figured I had some other things mixed in. Sapnap said the spikes were fire, but George argued the fins were water. What has water, air, and fire, I don’t know, but that’s what we think I am. What about you?”

“Air with a bit of fire,” he said. “Not enough, though. I’m just vanilla sky wyvern, as far as anyone can tell.” 

“You’re not that old, then,” I realised. 

“No, really?” His words were drawn out, and the sarcasm was stifling. 

“How old, then?” I asked. There was a long pause and I began to accept the fact he was never going to tell me like most questions I posed to him.

“Twenty-seven,” he said quietly, almost too quiet to hear.

“What was that?”

“I said twenty-seven. What are you, deaf?” he snapped. I blinked. 

“No way,” I said. Then I laughed. “No way.”

“What?”

“We’re the same age.” 

He growled and lifted his wings, uncurling his tail. I raised myself slightly, half expecting him to start an attack, but nothing ever came. Instead, he settled for opening and closing his wings irritably.

“You’re makin’ this very hard, you know that?” he said. Before I could ask, he flicked out what I saw was a dragon skull from where he had been laying. 

It rolled and rested in front of my feet. I prodded it and it fell over to its side, the jaw swinging open in a silent laugh.

“Why?” I asked. He shrugged. 

“Why not?” He walked over, sitting back on his legs, picking the skull up with his wing talons, turning it to face him. “This nerd probably gave me scale rot. Not sure yet.” I scooted over a few feet.

“So you killed him?” 

“Not sure what else I would have done.” He peered at me over the skull. “I want you to have it.”

“For what?” I half laughed. “A helmet?”

“Somethin‘ like that,” the wyvern said, his flat tone as emotionless as ever. He wasn’t joking, then. 

“Why?”

“So I don’t have to look at your hideous face. I don’t know, what do you think?” He wrapped his talons around the jaw and pulled it out with a brittle crack. He tossed it away, turning back to me. “Put it on.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. He raised a spiked brow. “Fair enough.” I took it into my claws, running them against the fangs. If only my friends could see me now. 

I turned the skull so I was looking at the inside, and I pulled it on over my face. It fit strangely over my horns, but it fit. I lifted my head.

“Better.” The wyvern squinted at me as if assessing a work of art. “It covers up the stupid scar.”

“Wow, thanks,” I said flatly. 

“You’re very welcome.”

* * *

“Are you ready to actually try or are you going to keep acting like an idiot?” the wyvern said. 

“You say that as if I wanted you to hit me,” I grunted. My side wasn’t paining me too much, but every so often I would make a turn that was just a little too sharp and I would have to stop for a second to wait for the sting to die down. 

The wyvern danced around me and smacked me on the back of the head, shoving my shout in the sand. 

“Ow,” I yelled. 

“Stop overthinkin‘ and  _ do _ ,” he said. He leapt over my head and landed in front of me. I scowled at him “Don’t give me that look.”

“How can you even see that? I thought the fangs covered most of my expressions,” I protested. He laughed mysteriously, or as mysteriously as he could manage. I’d formed a growing suspicion he wasn’t nearly as stoic as he tried to seem.

“I have my ways,” he said. He ducked low and shoved his snout beneath me, flipping me onto my back. “You really need to stop fallin‘ for that.”

“I thought we were still talking.” I wiggled onto my front and shook the dust from my wings. “That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“Fairness has no s-” the wyvern began, but I tackled him to the ground and sat on his chest, throwing my head back with a triumphant laugh. I rose and dipped in the air as he sighed deeply. 

“You thought I wasn’t paying attention,” I said leaning over in his face, poking him on the horn. He gave me a foul look.

“You’re not,” he said, then flapped his wings. I didn’t move. He wrinkled his snout and tried again, but I was planted securely on top of him. “Get off.” The tip of my tail twitched and I grinned.

“No.”

“Get off, I mean it.” My grin widened.

“No.” The wyvern huffed and I felt his tail winding up to wrap around my neck, but I wasn’t going to fall for that again. 

I grabbed the tail with one of my hind legs and pinned it to the ground. He scoffed in protest. 

“You’re the worst,” the wyvern growled, and I laughed again. It was a real laugh, too, not forced like most of the ones I’d been doing recently, though calling it a laugh was stretching it. It was closer to a wheeze. 

Still hanging onto him, I launched myself up in the air. He screamed at a higher pitch than I expected, and I nearly dropped him. 

“You’re the worst,” the wyvern repeated, but this time it had a desperate edge. “This isn’t even fightin‘. Has your tail healed yet?”

“I guess we’re about to find out,” I said, flexing the fins. 

I tucked my wings in for a dive, and the wyvern’s screams increased in both pitch and volume. As we neared the ground, I flung out all six of my wings, and we shot up. The wyvern was clinging on for dear life at this point, and I was taking great joys out of watching him suffer.

“I know this is revenge for the tail,” he said shakily, “but could you please let me go?” 

“Sure,” I said, flying up, right beneath the net and tossing him down. 

“I fucking hate you,” he shouted, voice fading as he fell. He righted himself right above the stone and returned to the sky. 

“Hey, I think our tails healed,” I said, circling the center of the ring. 

“You don’t say?” the wyvern muttered, joining me in my loops. “Since you’re so fixated on gettin‘ everyone around you includin’ you killed in the air, let’s practice some aerial combat.” I genuinely hid my smile, now. 

I was the best at aerial combat. 

The wyvern swooped at me, extending his claws. I dipped under and around him, grabbing his tail again, but swinging him around and tossing him. While he was trying to regain his balance, I tucked in my primaries and tertiaries, relying only on my secondaries, and span through the air. I let my wingtips catch on his, knocking him over again. 

This time when he tried to fix his altitude, I didn’t let him stabilise. Instead, taking advantage of his disorientation, I made my way over top of him and clamped his wings to his sides. While he struggled, I brought us up closer and closer to the net. 

“Don’t you dare,” he shouted.

“I don’t know, I think this is a pretty fair trade,” I said. He struggled even harder, but without his wings and at this angle, there was nothing he could do. 

We were right next to the metal, now. It was tempting, it was  _ very _ tempting. But no, I wouldn’t do it. I remembered that fall well, and it wasn’t something I wished on most anyone. 

I coasted down to the ground once more, releasing the wyvern right before we met the ground. He smacked against the floor like a fish on a rock, and just laid there much in the same manner as one.

“I’ve never been beaten so badly in my life,” he whispered, staring emptily at the wall. “My clout, it’s slippin‘ away.”   


“For a dragon primarily in the air domain, you’re shit at aerial combat,” I commented. 

From the hallway, out walked the man. From under his helmet, he seemed almost impressed, if his scowl wasn’t always so deep. The rat boy was behind him, and I kept glancing over at him but he seemed more occupied in almost anything but me.

“Good,” the man said. “But you can do better. Especially you.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the wyvern, who seemed to be going through three different types of crises at once. I, on the other hand, was lost in a daze. I had done all of that in  _ seconds _ , and I was still rusty. 

I shivered at the revelation. I could do something. I could  _ do  _ something, and by Etis below, I was good at it. 

They placed the chains on us, but that day I left the arena with a smile on my face that matched that on the skull’s. In that moment, I wasn’t thinking of escaping. 

I had a purpose. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so 1,000 hits and 100 kudos pog,,, thanks a lot for all of that really :D


	8. Wind Chill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a slight TW for mentioned past abuse!

I was starting to get more tired of the arena setting. The housing wasn’t much better than the cages the dragons were kept in, and only a select few people got heating. Being the assistant of the head handler helped a lot, and I at least got my own room, but it was still too cold.

“Karl! Hurry the fuck up!” I nearly jumped out of my skin when the harsh knock reached me. I quickly pulled my shirt the rest of the way over my head, pausing briefly to scratch at my shoulder. The door swung open moments after I’d gotten my shoes on, and the Handler stared at me.

I managed a smile, but of course, it didn’t change anything. He had his helmet on already, and it stared accusingly at me. “What are we doing today?”

“We do the same thing every day.” The Handler reached under the helm to pinch the bridge of his nose. He turned to walk away, and I jogged to fall in beside him. 

“Well, _ we  _ don’t,” I started. Without having to say anything, the Handler raised his hand in my direction. I flinched back. The Handler hummed almost happily, patting me on the shoulder as if to congratulate me for being scared. I stuttered out an apology and scratched the back of my neck.

* * *

I trudged into the closest cage to the door, two buckets of nearly rancid meat in my hands. The green six-winged dragon chirped at me, and I set down one of the buckets to wave at him. The pink wyvern snorted at me, staring down the buckets with contempt. I edged away from him, reaching out to the green dragon with some of the meat in hand.

He took it gratefully despite the grimace that was etched onto his face under the skull when he swallowed it. He coughed and stuck his forked tongue out. 

“I’m sorry, I know it sucks,” I told him. He rolled his eyes, echoing what I said with an annoyed look. 

“You gave me  _ chicken _ a month ago, what happened to that?” he groused in hurried Indati. I gave him a few pats on the snout, pulling my hand away when he went to snap at me.

“Asshole.” I threw a few pieces of meat to the wyvern, wiping the viscous, slimy residue that clung to my fingers onto my shirt. Feeding dozens of traumatised, enslaved dragons something that rats refused to touch tended to go about as well as I expected it to, which was to say, pretty horribly. 

* * *

The Handler and I were standing in the upper rows of seats, watching two dragons train in the arena. I was constantly scratching at my forearms, cursing and fidgeting. It earned several odd looks from him, but he was too focused on the arena to say anything directly.

“I wonder…” he mused. “What does it take to break a dragon?”

I glanced back at the clouds of dust, watching them break apart and settle back onto the ground to reveal the two-headed dragon. The ram head was bleeding from his mouth, leaning to check on the other head. It would have been nice to see them getting along if it weren’t for the mangled body of a lindwyrm beneath them.

It almost made me sick. The dragon’s face was permanently twisted with shock and fear. Etis, and its  _ spine _ . I gagged, looking at the lindwyrm’s bloodied corpse with pieces of skin sticking out at odd angles from broken bones threatening to burst through. The two-headed dragon stepped down from the body, shaking out its wings in what, from this distance, looked like a double yawn. I had to sit down, leaning forward and covering one eye with my palm.

“Hey,” I whispered, “why are we doing this again?”

The Handler hummed and sat next to me, “I do it for money. Mark, though,” he took off his helmet and held it in front of him, “he just wants to watch them tear each other apart, and I understand it. It’s fun.” I scoffed, and he put the helmet down on the row below us. The Handler snapped his fingers a few times to make me look at him. “You’re not backing out on me, are you?”

I slapped his hand away and hurriedly shook my head, waving my hands out in front of me. “No, no. It’s just, it’s just a lot to take in.” I wasn’t exactly lying, at least not about the second bit. I would back out if I could without getting hurt, but it didn’t feel like something you could just leave. Besides, the ring was giving me a place to live virtually free of charge.

He half-smiled, and I felt just a small bit better. He was in a decent mood, which would make  _ everyone’s _ lives easier, even if it only lasted a day. He wasn’t too bad, really, he just came off as a massive prick most of the time. To be honest, the biggest problem I had was that he always wore that helmet.

“Those dragons, the one with the weird wings and the wyvern with tusks, what do you think of them?” I muttered, eyes fixed on the mask. 

“They could be doing a hell of a lot more in the ring, especially the green one,” the Handler yawned. “He needs to use his wings more, the fucker’s got six of them. He’d do a lot better in the air, and he’s gonna get killed if he doesn’t figure it out soon.”

“And the other one?”

“Well, he’s a brute. Strong wings, yeah, but in the air, they’d just get in the way, they’re too big to use efficiently up there in this net and not the open sky. He needs to rely on strength, kinda like a boar. I have hope for him.” I looked out at the arena again, at the corpse of the lindwyrm laying open on the stone. 

The Handler’s hope was not something taken lightly. 

* * *

My back hurt from sitting on the floor for so long. Really, it had only been around fifteen minutes or so. It felt like so much longer, listening to the Handler drone on in barely comprehensible Indati. It was supposed to be speech practice, but I couldn’t focus on anything he was saying. Even if I could, I doubt I’d understand any of it.

It was funny, though, watching dragons suppress smiles and laughter when he spoke to them. To be fair, he was trying to sound intimidating when his voice rose an octave every time he spoke in anything but English. I mean, my voice wasn’t much to listen to either, but I wasn’t going around insulting dragons and telling them that I own them. In Indati, messages like that just don’t really land if you’re human. 

The Handler clapped his hands together a few times, scaring me out of my thoughts, “Are you even fucking listening?” I jumped and cleared my throat with a shy smile.

“With all due respect, sir, you’re hard to understand. You’re not the… best with Indati,” I told him, fully expecting a lecture about respect. 

Instead, the Handler just sighed and put his mask on the table, covering his face with both hands. “I keep getting that from the newer dragons.” He sounded more frustrated than anything. I stood up, leaning on the wall behind me.

“Well, it’s pretty normal for us to be bad at it, it just so happens that you’re the worst.” The Handler stared at me for a long time after that. He didn’t look mad, but I also couldn’t see most of his face because of his hands. He exhaled through his nose in almost a laugh, and I risked a giggle while scratching my cheek. He’d never gotten that close to a laugh before, it made me feel safe.

The Handler pulled me away from the wall and gave me a gentle push towards the door, shaking his head. “Go to bed, Karl.” I swatted at his hand and grinned at him over my shoulder before leaving.

Walking down the hallway to reach my room, I chewed on the inside of my cheek. My feet hurt from constantly moving around, and the constant itching didn’t help anything. As if on cue, I scratched one of my ribs. I furrowed my brows when my nail was caught on something. Pulling at it, I held my hand in front of me to look closer at whatever I’d found. It was a dark purple scale, and there was blood running from where I’d picked it off. 

Shit, not another one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crow and I are taking a day off to have a break from writing, have fun with this <3


	9. Gale

My claws scraped against the pale, rocky surface of the pillar, and I used my wings to steady myself. Across the arena filled with more pillars of varying height and perches, the wyvern did the same.

“Are you ready?” I shouted. He nodded. 

We dove down into the thick stone forest, weaving between them to reach the other. I felt at home, slipping around impossibly sharp corners, over and under absurdly high barriers, through loops that shouldn’t have been able to fit me with my many wings. And yet, I did it all. Easily, if I might add. Pride swelled in my chest that I was still able to do it all, even after the weeks it took for my tail to fully heal. 

“There you are,” I muttered, spotting a flash of pink darting through the maze. I followed close behind.

I perched on top of a ledge, looking down at the wyvern as he raced through the narrow passes. His wings were folded in further than was probably comfortable, but he was managing. There was sort of brutal elegance to the way he flitted from pillar to pillar, surveying then gliding. Where I expected his tail to hit the corners, he instead gracefully manoeuvred like an eel through water. With a smile, I thought of George and how similar the movement was. 

I shook myself from the thought and pounced down on him. 

“Where were you hidin’?” he yelled furiously and I clamped him down on the ground. 

“You thought you were clever but in reality, I am the clever-er,” I declared, swatting away his wing as he attempted to bash me in the head with it. He groaned and went limp. I wheezed and pulled off of him, flying back to the top of the pillars. 

“I hate this,” the wyvern grumbled as he clambered up beside me.

“This is the part where I tell you to get good,” I said. He gave me the foulest glare I had ever had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of, and I flashed him a grin that mirrored the skull’s. 

“Fuck you,” he growled as the human walked up beneath us.

“Good,” he shouted. “You with the two wings, stop being sloppy. If pillars get in your way, knock them over.” With that, he retreated back into the hallway. The rat boy poked his head out the archway and gave me a thumbs-up before disappearing back into the shadows. 

“Why is he tellin’ us that now?” the wyvern complained. “You beat me  _ twice _ .”

“It’s because I kept destroying you so badly he had to help,” I said, prodding him in the shoulder. He flicked his tail, both to maintain balance and to display his anger. “You’re starting to remind me of someone I know.” 

He narrowed his eyes at me.

“That better be a compliment or I’m using your ribs as a toothpick.” My grin widened.

“See you on the other side,” I said, pushing his shoulder hard enough he slipped and fell off the pillar entirely. He shrieked but caught himself, flying back to the other end.

“You’re going down, greenie,” he called.

“Look up next time,” I replied.

This time when we began, we didn’t even try to dodge and weave. Instead, the wyvern leapt down and plowed through the pillars. The spikes along his shoulders and back easily shattered the stone, turning them to a fine dust and he barreled towards me.

I jumped up to the air, circling overhead before I swooped and tried to grab him. He anticipated this, though, and arched his back, driving the spikes up into my scales. 

“Shit,” I choked as they scraped across my chest plates. Thankfully, they were thick enough not to give, but the skin beneath would probably bruise. I’d take a bruise over a ruptured lung. 

I took back to the skies, trying to bait him up but we were both smarter than that. He took a sizable chunk of rock into his mouth, whipped around, and launched it up in the air at me. I dodged easily, but then they kept coming.

The incessant projectiles were starting to get on my nerves, and I roared at him. He roared back, and we stayed there, me beating my wings in place, glaring down at the wyvern sitting atop a pile of broken stone. We were at a stalemate. 

“Don’t stop now,” the human sighed, leaning out of the hall. Both of us turned sharply to him, and he balked. “Don’t give me that look, you did this to yourselves.”

“You’re the one that told me to do it,” the wyvern said, gesturing exasperatedly with his wings. 

“I wanted you to level the playing field, not destroy it,” the man shot back. 

“This arena isn’t big enough for us to actually fight correctly,” I said. “Not only that, but these pillars aren’t exactly trees. This isn’t fighting, it’s just one person picking on the other depending on the setting.”

“That’s how these work,” the man snapped. “Either you fight with what you’re given or you die. Not somewhere you like? Great, make it something you can work with. Both of you could be great fighters if you just used your brains.” A sneer was beginning to pull on my lips, and I let it.

“Don’t drag us here to the middle of nowhere, chain us and treat us like animals, then expect us to fight,” I snarled. The man drew his sword with a shriek of metal against metal.

“You don’t get a say,” he growled. “Kill or be killed. That’s the law of the ring.”

“Who wrote that law?” I bristled, hunching my shoulders. My wings flared out, ever so slightly. 

“Someone that could end you in seconds,” the human said. I stared deep into his eyes, but all I saw was ice.

He was more of a beast than I could ever be, I thought with mild amusement. Funny that they should hunt us and make us fight each other like we’re the ones so feral and bloodthirsty. 

“Your first duel is tomorrow,” he said with his frozen eyes. “Whether you survive or not is up to no one but you. But be careful, they’re all lethal from here on out unless they’re in practice or semi-final duels. Kill or be killed.”

“Death would be better than this.” I contemplated attacking him, ending him where we stood. Maybe I would find a way to get past the net, get the collar off my neck. I’d find my way down south to George and Sapnap. Maybe we could find Bad. Maybe I could forget all of this.

Two versus one… it would be so easy.

But a look from the wyvern and I knew it wouldn’t get that far. 

And then the rat boy stumbled out of the hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs. More shouts erupted from the dark, and the wall exploded in a cloud of grey dust. 

A silver dragon with tall, ridged spikes down its back reared its head and announced its fury to the late autumn air. It turned its black eyes to us, then down to the man standing before us with his drawn sword, and to the boy cowering behind my foreleg. It snorted, steam billowing from its nose.

“Fire,” the wyvern said, and I gave him a rapid look before diving to the side, scooping the rat boy up and close to my chest. From the silver dragon’s mouth burst a sparking flame that devoured my sight and everything in the area we had just been standing. Even with my fire-resistant scales, my skin boiled. 

A part of me prayed to Etis that the human had perished in the inferno, but I knew the chances were slim, slimmer still than the stiletto knife I saw the human holding as he raced up to the silver dragon’s side, shoving the blade between the chest plates deep into its side.

It shrieked, writhing and throwing its body around. The human called back into the hall, and more voices answered.

I looked down to where the rat boy was shaking in my arm. His face was pale, paler than the white flames that bathed the arena. I cocked my head to the side, and he gave me the tiniest of nods.

Alright, so he was okay.

I scoured the arena with my eyes, and spotted the signature dull pink of the wyvern as it pulled itself up. Some of the fire had caught one of his wings, but he seemed fine other than a few minor burns. 

Another nod.

I looked back over at the silver dragon that was thrashing in the middle of the arena. Whatever the human had hit it with, it hit it  _ hard _ . Poisoned? Possibly. What kind of poison could affect a dragon, especially of that size?

“Thank you,” the rat boy said faintly in Indati. I looked down at him. He was still pale, but he seemed to be gaining confidence.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, patting my talon. I set him down, and while he brushed himself off, I darted forward toward the silver dragon.

Even in this fresh hell of a place I had been growing, but she was twice my size at the very least. She was, quite honestly, colossal. With her thrashing around, a stray swipe of a tail could spell death. 

“Think you could get through?” the wyvern said as he strode up beside me. 

“To do what?”

“Kill her, what do you think?” I frowned. 

“Why would I do that?” He scoffed and shoved my shoulder.

“Stop asking questions,” he said. “Hurry up, she might knock the net down on us all.” With that threat looming in my mind, I advanced on the writhing dragon.

Her tail wasn’t that much of a problem; she would fling it out every now and again, but a duck or hop could more than clear it. Her wings, on the other hand, posed different risks.

As I approached, she slammed her wing into my chest, sending me skidding across the sand like a pebble over a pond. I shook the dust from my scales, minded the bruises, and tried again. This time, no stray limbs caught me, but it was no small feat. The wings could not be jumped over without fully flying, as they were too wide. Ducking was out of the question with their proximity to the ground. Flying then was the only option, but it was easier said than done. 

It was like navigating a forest, if that forest was constantly moving and shifting rapidly. It took me only one more try, but it was the most stressful and demanding of them all. I span and turned, bobbed and weaved, and yet everything I did was always borderline. I could feel her claws rake my secondaries at one point, but I brushed the closeness aside to preserve my nerves and my sanity. Eventually, I made it to her head.

Her eyes were wide and rolling around in their skull, wild and desperate. Her jaws opened and closed to form words but no sound came out other than a high-pitched scream of utter, devastating agony. 

At some point, death is a mercy. Which was what I told myself when I spread my jaws, preparing to bite down on her open neck. 

_ I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. _

My eyes met the boy’s. He wouldn’t survive contact with the net. They met the wyvern’s. He was counting on me. And then they met the man’s.

_ This was what he wanted. _

This was the illusion of free choice. Even if I didn’t kill today, I would have to kill tomorrow. It was inevitable.

But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. I looked down at the dragon’s tear-stained face, and she only wanted to be free. I did, too. I didn’t want to abide by the laws dictated by the humans that hated us.

I backed up and flew away, dancing around the waving limbs. I landed beside the boy, leaning over him. If the net did fall, it would fall on me, not him.

“You didn’t do it,” he said.

“I didn’t.”

* * *

Humans came in, managing to pin the dragon down and drive a sword through her chest. I felt sick watching, but I was glad I wasn’t the one to do it. It was a selfish thing, I knew, but the thought of her blood in my mouth, on my claws, it was revolting. 

They bound us and brought us back to our cell. Walking down the hall, I could see all the damage she had wrought. The entire place was whipped up in a commotion of panicked dragons and angry humans. Fortunately for them, no other dragons had escaped. But one nearly had.

“Why didn’t you do it?” the wyvern asked with genuine curiosity and wonder, something I didn’t expect. 

“It’s what the human wanted. She was still wearing her collar, did you see? If it had been anything other than intentional, would she have been wearing it? He could have activated it at any point, but he didn’t.” There was some merit behind the claim, but the true reason rested in the back of my mind. The wyvern’s eyes betrayed that he knew, but he didn’t prod further.

“So, first duel tomorrow,” he said. “Got any performance anxiety?”

“I just want to be free,” I muttered, curling into a ball in the corner of the room. Even the frozen press of stone into my side didn’t make me move. I couldn’t bring myself to care. 

“Soon,” the wyvern whispered. “Soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just slept for 14 hours pog which is twice as much as crow did so obviously i'm superior


	10. Flash Flood

I trudged into the arena, shaking out my wings. It was getting colder by the day, and the sun having already set was putting a massive dampener on my joints. Jeers and calls were thrown at me by an audience illuminated by torchlight. Looking up, I scanned through rows upon rows of humans in a thick crowd, and a few hundred dragons bound in chains and muzzles. Up on that podium of his stood the human, same as before. He wore a golden crown inlaid with jewels, but he was no king, not really. He watched me closely as I walked. It felt like it took me forever to reach the middle of the arena with my stiff movements.

I turned back to the dragons, quickly spotting the pink wyvern. He nodded at me with his usual neutrally bored face. I nodded back and drew in a deep breath. The rat boy came up to my side, looking around hurriedly as if he weren’t supposed to be near me. He most likely wasn’t.

“I wanted to say thanks for yesterday, and uh, don’t die,” he said rapidly, pulling his sleeves over his hands. He gave my leg a few pats before he ran off into the hallway, presumably to go to the stands.

The helmed man was standing above the opposite door, an orange glow emanating from the cracks. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and I could already tell that he was silently telling me that I wouldn’t get off so easy if I lost. With my luck, maybe I’d die. If he was so scared of me fucking up, why was he still training me? He might as well give up already, I wasn’t going to be his little pawn to play with.

Of course, there were the discreet exchanges of gold in the backdrop. He was probably betting on me, making money on my performance. For or against, I spared a thought to contemplate, but I purged it from my mind. I wasn’t about to throw a fight that could cost me my life for the man I despised’s profit. 

With a call from the false king, the gates were thrown open with considerable aggression. A wyvern lumbered out, her breath coming out in bursts of large clouds of vapour, immediately revealing her fire domain in a distinctly familiar way. Behind her, the holding chamber was smothered in bright flames. I had to fight the urge to shrink away.

It wasn’t clear to me whether the fire was for intimidation or just a result of the dragon’s ferocity, but it did wonders in making me question if anything was worth it for nearly the third time since I entered the ring. The wyvern locked eyes with me, and she swept her tail across the ground.

I ducked when the wyvern let out a spray of fire. It narrowly missed me, and I could hear it crackling against the wooden gates. The frills that ran along the middle of her back were flared in what looked to be an intimidation tactic. Effective, I would say, considering how I was shaking like a geriatric lightning dragon.

She charged moments after, moving her body fluidly and with terrifying precision. The wyvern snarled and I reared up, using my weight to push her snout away to avoid another blast of heat. She beat her wings in retaliation, batting my sides with rough, leathery skin. I shoved her and tried to take the opportunity to take to the air.

Teeth sunk into my tail, and the wyvern violently slammed me back onto the ground, easily knocking the wind out of me. I scrambled to stand back up, leaving deep claw marks in the dirt. I jumped back into the air, flying nearly to the top of the dome. The wyvern wasted no time in following close behind.

I dove down at her, raking my talons through the skin of her right wing. She faltered and dropped down, but only slightly. She whirled around to snap at me and send another spout of flames my way. I shrieked, clawing at my snout. I would have to thank the pink bastard later for the skull that somewhat protected my face. Etis, it fucking  _ hurt _ . I had to steady myself, narrowly avoiding another overcorrection crash landing. 

I shot up and threw the wyvern into the dome.

She screamed and thrashed, falling halfway to the ground before she managed to regain control. I didn’t have time to feel bad before she was throwing her body into mine. My skull mask flew off, falling to the ground with a barely audible thump. She bit down on one of my horns, showing no signs of letting go as she wrapped her talons around one of my ankles.

We spiralled down with gaining speed. I raked my claws down her stomach just before we hit the ground. I heard several cracks and felt even more as my bones protested the impact. I stumbled to my feet, swaying slightly. My vision was spinning with black spots in a kaleidoscope. 

The wyvern was much slower to stand, hissing and cursing in Indati while she processed. Her frills relaxed, she was distracted. I jumped on her back, doing my best to mind the sharp outcrops of bone. 

In a moment of sheer desperation, I buried my claws deep into her back, slipping between scales to keep my grip. The slickness of the gushing orange blood over my talons was vile, but survival beat principles. The human’s words flashed through the back of my mind,  _ kill or be killed, kill or be killed, kill or be killed _ . I choked on something I didn’t recognise, an emotion I had no name for, but my hold on the wyvern’s back didn’t falter.

She turned her head back as far as possible in an attempt to get to me, snarling and biting the air. I withdrew my claws from her back, pulling up just to bring myself back down, slamming my talons onto the back of her head and driving her snout into the dirt. The wyvern waved her tail around, trying to move in any way that could give her another chance to breathe. 

“Please-” she managed to say before coughing on the dust that began to coat the inside of her lungs as she gasped for air. I pressed down harder.

She looked so much like Sapnap, I realised. That was why she was familiar. Two wyverns with fiery personalities. 

I can’t go through with this.

I looked up and the pink wyvern was staring at me. There was something in his eyes. What was that meant to be, pity? I didn’t want his pity. But his eyes urged me to do it. He knew better than I, my suspicions assured me. But who he was and who I was were two different things.

He was a killer. I wasn’t.

Wasn’t I?

“Get this over with!” the man atop the platform yelled. The wyvern below me was beginning to struggle against my hold. I wasn’t going to be able to hold onto her much longer, and I could already feel the heat emanating from her scales. She was preparing another blast from her fire. At this proximity, that wasn’t going to be something I could dodge.

There was a pain in my throat, an ache in my chest. It was a bitter certainty. 

There was blood on my talons.

No matter where I went from here, I was never going to be free.

I twisted her head in the sand, jerking it far enough to the side for the sharp crack to echo through the arena. She went limp. A faint whine issued from deep in my throat, unfurling into a vicious roar that rattled my lungs and tore through my body.

I tossed back my head and  _ screamed _ at the crowd, at what they made of me. I couldn’t feel the cold anymore, I couldn’t feel anything at all. 

The rat boy came up to me with the chains, and his eyes were stained with tears. I couldn’t so much as meet his eyes. The wyvern, though, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. Was this what they had done to him, then? Was that what I was destined to become? 

There was no mask covering my face. I felt so bare without it, but I couldn‘t reach it anyway.

I was every bit the monster they thought me to be.

* * *

I was half asleep, constantly shifting around to get comfortable on the stone floor. The wyvern grumbled. He’d been muttering nonsense to himself for an hour straight, and he’d only stopped pacing a few minutes ago. Maybe he was trying to move around for warmth, I couldn’t tell, nor did I really care.

The door creaked open, the wyvern stopped talking. Light footsteps approached me, and I raised my head to look up at the rat boy. He was shivering with a threadbare blanket covering his shoulders. Standing behind the bars was the man, who looked to be vastly unbothered by the cold. The rat boy set down a skull in front of me with a grimace. I glanced at the wyvern, who only shrugged and laid down. What the fuck was I supposed to do with this?

“This is who you are now,” the human said. With that, he turned on his heel, striding away. The rat boy gave me a look I couldn’t identify and followed.

I slowly pulled the skull on with shaking talons. This was who I was now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we watched httyd together last night and are slowly starting to realise how much it and this book have in common. going dark


	11. Nor'easter

His claws clamped down on my throat, depriving me of air. I raked my talons over his front, but they had little effect. I snarled, jolting my body to the side as I brought my tail back up and against his side in the same place as last time. He threw his head back in a howl of pain and I shoved him off. I gasped for air, my pants rough and uneven. I stared into his wild eyes through the holes in the skull.

“Are you trying to kill me?” I said between coughs. The dragon only whipped his tail and lowered his head. 

“Hey!” the human yelled in his poor Indati. He ran out into the middle of the field, waving his arms. “Hey, don’t you fucking kill each other, what did I say earlier?” The boy sprinted out after him, his limp subtle but still noteworthy. 

“I didn’t do anythin’ out of what I normally do,” I said, shooting Greenie a look he didn’t react to. 

“Doesn’t matter, if one of you dies I’m going to make sure the other one suffers for it. I have too much hinging off of both of your successes, you hear me? You will, too, if you don’t pull your shit together,” the human snapped, jabbing a finger at me. I snarled back. His eyes widened with anger, but he stalked back to the hallway. “When I say fight, you  _ fight _ .”

“Kill or be killed,” Greenie muttered. He lunged at me, and I hissed back, leaping up in the air and over his head, baiting him to fly. He didn’t take it, though, which was annoying. His technique had suffered since he went and killed that one wyvern.

I sighed and landed, withdrawing as he darted towards me, claws outstretched. This newfound boldness wasn’t exactly the best move on his part, but he would learn. That is, if he didn’t tear my throat out first.

We danced around each other for a while, him being reckless and I cautious. It felt so wrong, but I wasn’t eager to face his newfound bloodlust. It hadn’t been like that for me. But, then again, I was a lot younger, and a lot more desperate. 

I had been cornered in a mountain pass during a blizzard. I was completely on my own for the first time in my life, and two snow dragons had crept up on me. I didn’t know what they had wanted to do with me and I didn’t want to find out, but they weren’t going to let me go so easily.

I was young, I was desperate, and I was  _ tired _ . There was no one to protect me, no one to come to the rescue. It was me and two dragons that would easily kill me or worse, just because they could.

Even at that age, my tusks were large enough to break scales. 

I didn’t have time for guilt. All I could do was survive. 

I didn’t kill for fun. At least, not for the most part. I was starting to develop a taste for it and I wasn’t sure I liked that or not, but it was too late to contemplate it. But Greenie, he was in deep. Deeper than I was. 

This morning he stained our trough with blood, the water turning the colour of rust. Even after he finished washing the blood off, he kept on scrubbing and scrubbing though there was nothing left to come off. I would have said something, but the look in his eyes came close to making me concerned.

It didn’t get really bad until we started sparring. He was relentless.

And  _ that _ was concerning.

“Come here,” he said in a dark tone. I squinted. 

“No, I don’t think I will,” I said, sliding to the side as he swooped over me, claws outstretched. He caught a wingtip, the one that had been burned when the silver dragon attacked. I snarled at the contact with the open wound, but he didn’t keep any hold on it.

I whipped out with my tail, catching him in the face. The spikes carved a long scratch across the snout, knocking the skull mask off his face. He screeched wordlessly, bringing his claws and wings up to cover its absence.

“What is your problem?” I yelled, snatching the skull and holding it close to my chest.

“Give it back,” he said through gritted fangs. I saw the glint of his eyes from between crossed forelegs and wings. 

“You need to calm the fuck down,” I said. He roared, pouncing on me. Alright, I should have seen that coming. He had my neck in his jaws, which seemed a little extreme given the circumstances. “What, are you gonna add me to your death count?” He balked, dropping me completely. I rubbed my throat with a wing-talon, feeling the golden blood trickle down and drip into the hard-packed dust.

I snorted.

“Fine.”

I lunged at him, driving my horns into his chest. I ignored his howls and the shouts from the ring as I pinned him to the ground, digging my claws into his legs. I shook out my wings and my horns, looking down at him as he bled and screeched. There was a second when I wondered if it was truly worth killing him, but I pushed it from my mind.

I wasn’t  _ that _ heartless. I think.

The humans didn’t agree, as the collar around my neck burst out in waves of electricity arching up and down my entire body.

I collapsed to the ground, twitching. My chest heaved, and rage thrummed along with my racing heart. I wasn’t some animal for them to bully into submission.

“Try that again and I will end you,” the human said, placing the edge of an axe in the curve of my neck. I didn’t so much as growl. I knew he would do it. There was final certainty in those icy eyes of his. 

This arena took a bit out of all of us. The longer we stayed here the less was left.

* * *

They took Greenie to the infirmary again. They had to sedate him because he kept trying to fight them off, something I watched with mild amusement as I was led back to the cell.

I was left in relative silence again. I resented it, but there wasn’t much else I could do about it other than maybe start a screaming match with the two-headed dragon a couple cells away. I didn’t see the appeal, though, so I simply laid on the stiffening cold stone. 

“So-” I jolted up at the words, assuming a defensive stance. The boy, wearing a ratty old sweater, shrieked and leapt back, throwing his hands up like it would stop my fangs. 

“Oh, it’s just you,” I said, settling back down. The boy looked more than a little offended by this but pressed on.

“So you were only attacking in self-defense, right?” he asked in his flawless Indati.

“Something like that.” I wasn’t  _ entirely _ lying, just… twisting the truth a bit. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering,” the boy said. “How has he been doing since last night?” I tapped my tail against the ground, exhaling a stream of steam as the warm air from my lungs met the chill of the late fall. It was going to snow soon.

“For him, badly. For anyone else in this situation, not terrible.” I clicked my talons on the stone, enjoying the way it made him jump. “Why do you care?” The boy opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. Though I merely tolerated both of them, it couldn’t be denied that they were, to some degree, friends. I suppose there could have been some empathy there. How much, though, I couldn’t say. Humans weren’t the most reliable for most any emotional estimation.

“I’m… worried,” the boy said, rubbing his arms. I cocked my head to the side. “I think there’s something wrong.”

“What gave it away, the sudden thirst for blood and violence or how he wouldn’t let you give him little head pats this morning?” I asked. The boy scowled at me. I smiled as sweetly as I was capable, which was around the same level as buffalo berries and spoiled olives. 

“I heard the handlers talking,” he said. “The Sovereign wants to fight him in a duel.” That caught my attention.

“No.”   


“It doesn’t matter what you think, but they want a spectacle and they think the state he’s in right now, they’re going to get it.” The boy scratched at his neck then abruptly pulled his collar up further. I got a glimpse of purple but I chose to file that away for later. We had more pressing matters at hand.

“Why are you talking to me about it?” I asked. The boy chewed on his lip, looking to the side. 

“There’s no way he’ll survive a fight with the Sovereign,” he said. I agreed, partially. Right  _ now _ he wouldn’t survive a fight with the Sovereign.

“Alright, and?”

“Don’t you want to stop it?” I raised my scaly brow at him, squatting down to look him in the eye.

“Did you forget what I did to you the first time I ever met you?” I gestured at his leg. “What makes you think I’d do a single thing you ask of me?”

“Because this doesn’t have anything to do with me,” he said with a streak of boldness I didn’t think he was capable of. “Do you care at all about the dragon you’ve been stuck with these past few weeks?”

“So, here’s the thing, I’m not really-”

“Do you care or not?” I shifted my tusks, flicking my tail.

“...yes.”

“Then you need to get him to stop acting like a rabid wolf and get his shit together, or else he’s going to get gutted by someone who does this for a living.” He scratched at his jaw, which killed the mood a bit but the point had been conveyed quite clearly. It was almost an ultimatum. I hated ultimatums.

“One day it’s just goin’ to be you and me alone in that ring, and I’m goin’ to rip your lungs out with my own claws. That is a promise.” I flared my eyes and gained some faint satisfaction as he jumped again with an unflattering shriek. 

I would help, though. Less because he asked, but more because I was afraid of the alternative. Like him or not, I had too much hinging off of the manic six-winged dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I AM SO SORRY WE ARE LATE ANY PRIMERS IN CHAT


	12. Flurries

I shuffled into the arena for what felt like the third time today. It was in wildly different states every time I went back, and this time was no exception. The snow that covered the ground in a thick blanket was now thrown about and shoved into piles with most of it being painted with a rainbow of blood from every dragon imaginable. I snorted, spotting several patches with charred dirt peeking through sheets of melting ice.

The man and rat boy had left me alone soon after, talking amongst themselves and barking orders at nearby guards. Well, the boy stayed mostly silent. He avoided me like the plague and stuck closely to the man’s side. I trotted around the perimeter of the ring, sniffing at anything remotely interesting, which admittedly wasn’t much at all. 

I shook my wings out to stretch them. The wyvern and I were growing, and our cage would be uncomfortably cramped before long. I was losing space to move my wings around without him having something to say about it. Though, stretching did hurt if only just a little. My ‘tantrum’ in the infirmary, as the man put it, was disruptive to say the absolute least. 

The man and rat boy trudged into the arena, still talking to each other hushed voices. I barely noticed, too caught up in the newly falling snow. I’d seen snow before while living in the mountains, but it always managed to distract me for an unreasonable amount of time. That being said, it was seconds before I was sprinting in circles to swat at the snowflakes.

It was the most fun I’d have in awhile, and I was definitely going to take advantage of it. I snapped at a few flakes, frowning when they drifted away from me. An arrow whipped past my face, narrowly missing me by a matter of inches. With a startled snort, I whirled around to look at the humans. With them stood the crowned man who I’d been seeing at most of the fights. 

The man was scarcely shorter than the rat boy but held all of the same power and intimidation as the helmeted man. His crown looked to be made of pure gold, and it carried a jewel that I assumed to be a ruby. The rat boy lowered the bow in his hand, chewing on the inside of his cheek. That motherfucker. 

The crowned man took a few steps towards me with his sword drawn, giving me the look of a hunting wolf. He swung it in a loose arc at his side, but I didn’t take the bait, instead looking back at the snow. I didn’t feel like fighting another pointless battle right now.

He didn’t seem to like that.

The crowned man reached for the small knife attached to his belt. He pointed at the rat boy, and then to the ground a few feet in front of himself. The boy stepped in front of him, and the helmeted man’s face, what I could see of it, was twisted with discomfort. I blinked, and the knife was buried in the rat boy’s collarbone. He fell to the ground, his voice cracking with a piercing cry. 

I jumped back, watched as the helmed man rushed forward to drop down to the boy’s side. A growl rumbled in my throat and I scrambled to them. I stood over the best I could, crouching down and bringing my wings down to cover my sides, keeping them almost fully enclosed.

Under me, the man was speaking frantically over the rat boy’s screams; they were panicking. I moved in front of them to act as a barrier, cooing at the boy. The knife was lodged in the bone, and the man was cradling him like he was a child. Well, for all I knew, he could be. The crowned man came to kneel beside them, tilting his hand and poking at the blade. He grabbed the handle and pulled back, but it stayed firmly in place.

In an instant, the helmed man was on his feet. He tore his helmet off and swung it at the other’s head, throwing most of his weight into it and nearly falling over as it connected. I winced as the bronze dented with just the slightest smudge of blood. There was more yelling, and  _ Eits _ , I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I was on the man’s side. He was betting on my life days before, that’s not something I should forget. 

The crown was left on the floor with the downed man grabbing at it to place it back on his head. It was bent from the impact. I bit at his shirt and dragged him a decent distance from the two. He thrashed and smacked my snout with admirable strength. I saw a flash of metal glinting in the sun, and my first, admittedly stupid thought was  _ another one _ ? 

This knife had a significantly longer blade and something that became difficult to conceive as it buried itself hilt-deep into my neck. He hadn’t hit anything major as far as I knew, but the burning threw me off enough for him to grab it and use it as a step stool to clamber up onto my back. The knife was quickly removed then jabbed into my shoulder. I snarled as he grappled one of my horns. It was embarrassing how easily he made me turn my head in enough ways that made me too dizzy to coordinate any sort of counter.

I jumped into the air, making laps around the top of the dome in an effort to throw him off. I rolled and span around as much as I could without going down, clawing at my neck where I felt him, but the man remained unaffected. Etis be damned, he really had one hell of a grip. The knife was taken from my shoulder, and I took the opportunity to immediately spin again. The weapon spiralled down to the ground with a curse from the man. 

He slammed his elbow down onto the middle of my neck right between two plates, and my body froze completely. I slammed into the ground with enough force to make my head spin. The man stumbled away from me, bleeding from his wrist and his forehead, not from my efforts, I knew. I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up with a wince. A bloodcurdling scream rippled throughout the ring, and the smaller knife from before was tossed in my direction. The rat boy was curled in on himself, blood pouring out onto the sand and snow that gathered in unsettlingly red clumps. 

I hissed and scratched at my ears. Everything was getting so  _ loud _ . I fell back onto my stomach, despite my internal protest. I had to squeeze my eyes shut to avoid looking at the white snow. Of course, it wasn’t all white, but even the blood-stained heaps were too bright for my liking. I tried to move my legs, but all I got was a slight curl of my claws. What the  _ fuck _ did he do to me? 

Even when everything started to fade out, the tiniest buzz in my ear was enough to make me whimper. I’d passed out before, but this just felt wrong. I was still fully awake, but it felt like I was hearing everything if someone was only describing it. Soft warbles and distant distorted calls in a language I didn’t really understand. 

A boot connected with my chest and everything came rushing back to me all too fast. The sun blinded me as my eyes snapped open when I coughed. It wouldn’t have bothered me if the first thing I heard wasn’t an ugly mix of sobs and curses. My eyes slowly adjusted, fixed on the rat boy who laid slumped against the man, whose arms were wrapped tightly around him.

The man was moving frantically with his helmet left abandoned on the ground. He brought his head to rest his ear on the boy’s chest for several seconds, still holding him like a man clinging to life itself. He had one hand pressed over the rat boy’s collarbone, and blood was beginning to dry and take an odd texture on the man’s hands, partly on his neck. I couldn’t see if the boy was breathing or not, but I didn’t know if I wanted to find out. 

My sight faded out, taken from me by a pounding heart and a whirling head. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything even if I tried. I was paralysed.

* * *

I woke up again, my senses assaulted with the overwhelming smell of humans. The stone floor beneath me wasn’t cold, but the air around me made me shiver. Everything about my surroundings felt increasingly wrong. The room was too full of everything except dragons, and I could hear soft shuffling sounds from what seemed to be on the other side of a wall accompanied by quiet conversations. Even the texture of the floor was off, it was too smooth to be from my cage, and there was no straw so it definitely wasn’t the infirmary. 

I pried my eyes open, glancing around the fully closed walls, a small window covered in weathered glass panes, and a large wooden door, large enough to fit a younger dragon through. Sitting up, I looked around the room again with alarm. My vision was limited from the dying torch on the wall, the light from the sun having evidently already set, but I could see the outlines of a wooden bed and desk. The desk was mostly empty, save for a few scattered papers and a charcoal stick. I squinted, making out the shape of the man’s bronze-cast helmet illuminated in the flickering torchlight. A chair was pulled up beside the bed where the man was sitting, nearly folded in half with how he was resting his head on whoever was actually laying beneath. 

Bringing myself to my feet, I felt at my snout for a muzzle and instead found only my mask. My wings were free as well, which left the question of why in Etis’ name was I in a human’s room? I sniffed at the foot of the bed, and almost immediately it was brought into my cheek. I jumped back with a surprised growl. The person on the bed seemed to be asleep, and the man had his head resting on their chest and his arm loosely draped over them.

I climbed halfway onto the bed, sniffing and nudging the person asleep. The man shot up with an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp. I ignored him and poked at the person’s face. It was the rat boy, bandages covering his chest, and I could see patches of purple creeping around the back of his neck. I poked at them with a claw, squinting at the scaly texture.

“What are you looking at?” the man muttered in hoarse Indati, leaning back onto the bed. I shook my head and curled down around the boy, my hind legs and tail still hanging off of the bed. The man poked at the scales on the rat boy’s shoulder with a sigh. He picked one off, frowning when the spot started to bleed. I swatted at his hand with a low growl. 

“You’re going to hurt him.”

“Do you know why they’re there?” The man held the scale between two fingers, leaning back in his chair to examine it in a better light. The door creaked open with soft footsteps, and the man hummed with a wave. I lowered myself down and around the boy with a watchful eye on the visitor. 

The man’s shoulders dropped and he stood to embrace the visitor. I stared at them, barely noticing when the boy began to stir. They talked hurriedly with the man gesturing to me every few seconds. The boy smacked my neck a few times with increasing panic. I turned my head to him in time to see him frantically pulling the blanket up to his chin as if to hide from the two men across the room.

They looked at him, the taller man rushing back to his spot at the chair. The visitor trailed behind him, warily tilting his head at me. As he drew closer, I recognised him as the man that monitored the fight with the two-headed dragon. I snarled at him, draping one of my wings over the boy as a barrier. He reached for the sword on his side with a few words directed at the boy. 

The rat boy pushed my wing aside and sat up, still holding the blanket up to his chin. He held one arm out in front of him and shakily told them something. The men looked between each other as the boy repeated what he said, this time with considerably higher volume. I pushed my head against his chest in an attempt to calm him, but that only seemed to piss off the new man. 

He shoved me and ripped the blanket away from the boy, who jumped forward with his hand out to grab it. They yelled back and forth, the boy’s arms crossed over his chest in an attempt to cover the spreading purple scales. His eyes were watering with increasing cracks in his voice. I moved in front of him again, glaring at the armed man as he kept a firm grip on his sword. 

“Goddamnit… Put… Down!” the man by the bed shouted as the other began to raise his sword. He shoved the man’s blade away from the boy and me. The boy wrapped his arms tightly around my neck, breathing dangerously quick. He slumped forward before jolting upright. He brought both hands back up, tangling them into his hair and pulling at it with closed eyes. 

I pulled at his wrists, warbling worriedly at the arguing men. They ignored me, getting more violent with their gestures at each other. The rat boy was sobbing now, moving between trying to bring his blanket up and clinging onto me as if it were life or death. He fell onto his back, breathing forcibly evened out as his body gave out. From his collarbone, blood began to seep lazily back through the bandages. 

When did my life get so complicated?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i vry tirired rig now why ws i chosen to pst xhchaper


	13. Frostbite

I bolted up in the cold bed, clawing at the bandages that wrapped over my chest. My body protested, several patches on my shoulders and back itching like crazy, my collar bone screaming in pain.

I looked down at my arms, and they were almost entirely coated in a thin layer of purple scales that seemed to shift in colour in the limited light from my window. I felt sick to my stomach, and my throat throbbed like I had been screaming. The back of my mind told me I had, but my head was too fuzzy for me to remember. 

The Handler… and the Sovereign… the green dragon was there… then I was in the Handler’s room… the dragon was there again too… and then Chris came in… 

The scales…

My fists clenched, less out of anger and more to see if they still worked. The joints ached, but that may have been from the biting cold my blanket did little to shield me from. My sweater wasn’t going to be much help anymore. 

And then there it was, at the back corners of my tired brain. I had had a panic attack. That was it. And I passed out, less from the panic attack. Looking down, my bandages looked clean, but that was a new development. At least I was in my own room now. 

I looked up and around the barren place, at the smooth stone floors half-covered in unwashed clothes, at the chair that the Handler was sitting in and staring at me intently. 

I shrieked, jumping up a few inches before falling back down on my bed, rubbing my bandages as the wound beneath throbbed angrily. Then I remembered I wasn’t wearing a shirt and buried myself under the blankets as if they would hide the scales that had been exposed for who knows how long. 

“When were you going to tell me about this?” the Handler demanded, the chair scraping against the stone floor as he stood. There was a series of footsteps that led right up to my bed. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing but it didn’t really help.

“I didn’t think it was important-”

“Karl, you are covered in scales. Literally covered in them. I asked Amy and TapL about it but neither could give me an answer. Mark just laughed at me. Do you know what happens when the Sovereign laughs at me, Karl?” I bit my tongue, squeezing my eyes shut tighter.

“Y- yes,” I stammered. I felt sick to my stomach, like there was something coiled up that wanted to be let out. 

“Tell me what’s going on, and don’t tell me you don’t know because I know that’s not true,” he said.

“But I don’t,” I said. He slammed his fist on the wall. 

“Bullshit.” The footsteps pounded away as he paced around the room. “Stop lying to me. You know I only want what’s best for you.” 

“I’m telling the truth,” I protested. “I don’t know why it’s happening, I just woke up one day and they-” He tutted, and tore the sheet off of me. I gasped shakily, curling in closer as if that would hide anything. 

“I wonder what Chris would think if he saw you,” he said, the gleam of disgust in his eyes. “Tell me why you’re growing scales, Karl.”

“I don’t know!” I yelled, then shrank in on myself. I shouldn’t have done that, fuck, I should’ve just made something up, what have I  _ done- _

__ “I’m disappointed in you,” the Handler said. I found something interesting on the ground and stared at it like my life depended on it, and maybe it did, at least to some degree. The Handler walked back up in front of me, and he squatted down so I had nowhere to look but at him. My mind raced. 

“Is that why you let the Sovereign stab me?” I whispered hoarsely. He didn’t seem to have expected that and blinked emptily for a few seconds. 

“I- no, he did that because he needed to provoke the green one,” he said. I’d thrown him off, then. Thank Etis, thank any god that existed and cared. “I wouldn’t have let him do it if I had known he was actually going to hurt you.”

“Right, because you care so much about me,” I muttered.

“I do, Karl Jacobs, and don’t you ever forget about it. You’re my responsibility, and I’m going to fulfil it.” He stood and walked over to the door. “I’m going to let you put a shirt on. Don’t let anyone see those… those  _ scales _ , you hear me?” I nodded numbly. “Good.” The door snapped shut and I was alone in my room.

My head fell into my hands and I allowed the tears I had been choking back to fall.

* * *

The cold bit at my fingers and nose, and far from the first time I yearned for a warm coat. The worn woolen monstrosity I was wearing was so devoured by moths it could barely even be called a sweater.

I walked down the hallways, hunched over and shivering. When I finally made my way to the cage where the pink and green dragons were, I fumbled with the lock for a good few minutes before my stiff fingers could get it to budge. 

When it was finally open, I took a few steps into the room. The green dragon, with worried eyes behind his skull mask, reached out a talon that I took. He wasn’t much warmer. Should’ve figured. Only more fire domain dragons give off heat. 

“Are you alright?” he asked, sniffing me, then coiling his neck around my legs. I patted his scales, aware of my breath coming out in puffs of steam. He was even colder than the air around me, I realised. It was too late to move now, though. Dragon etiquette was generally ‘don’t offend the giant lizard and it won’t eat you,’ and I stuck by that.

“I’ve been through worse,” I said, only partially a lie. I scratched at my wrist, then pulled my sleeve down further. The scales were  _ still _ growing. 

“What’s up with that?” the green dragon asked. “I’ve never seen a human with scales.”

“Oh, you’re one of those ones that slowly turn into a dragon, aren’t you?” the pink dragon said. “That explains the perfect Indati, too.”

“Hold on, I’m a  _ what _ ?”

“That could be it. Yeah, I’ve met a few of those, they’re pretty nice. Sad, though.” The green dragon tilted his head at me. “The humans’ll kill you if they find out, won’t they.” My eyes widened, my breath hitching in my throat. 

“They don’t know, they  _ can’t _ -“

“Hey, don’t panic on me. You’ll be fine as long as you keep their minds off it, at least until you get wings, _ if _ you get wings. The fact that they haven’t noticed that people are turning into dragons left and right should be telling enough.” He nudged me with his snout. The bone was like a block of ice against my skin, even covered. 

“But what if they do figure it out?” I asked. 

“Either they’ll end you right then and there or they’ll turn you into an attraction like the rest of us,” the wyvern said. 

“How do I avoid that?” I said slowly. 

“Run.” The green dragon lowered his snout, peering into my eyes with his. “But not yet. Run when you know you can make it. If you get caught you’re dead, and if you go now it’ll look suspicious, on top of the fact that you’re injured.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe if you want to get eaten like a pig.” The dragon turned its head to look at the other. “Maybe if the scent is strong enough?”

“I don’t know why I’m helpin’ a human,” he replied. 

“Is he even human anymore?” The green one turned back to face me and sniffed again. “Doesn’t really smell human.”

“Fine,” the wyvern sighed. “But if you get on my nerves I’ll eat you.”

“I’ll take your word for it. That reminds me.” I scratched at my neck. “The reason why I came down here- you both have duels coming up. You-“ I pointed at the pink dragon “-have one tomorrow. And you-“ I pointed at the green dragon “-have one the day after.” They exchanged glances. 

“Do we at least get some trainin’ time?” the pink asked. 

“I don’t kn-“

“Why are you in there?” the Handler’s voice echoed through the hall. The door creaked open and I was grabbed by the arm and hauled out. “What are you  _ doing _ ?”

“They weren’t going to hurt me,” I said, bracing for the inevitable yelling. 

“You don’t know that.” The Handler dragged me down the hallway, and the dragons in the lining cages began to stir. Angry eyes traced our movement and began to growl. It soon turned to snarls and even roars until it snowballed into a cacophony of dragons announcing their displeasure to the northern valley air. 

The Handler led me up the stairs, his hand digging into my arm hard enough it was probably going to bruise. Wouldn‘t be the first time. 

“Now you’ve got them all riled up,” he sighed as if this was all my fault. “Why do you have to keep making this so hard?”

“I’m not trying to,” I said in a small voice. It didn’t really matter, I knew. He wouldn’t listen anyway. He never did.

“Karl?” someone called out from behind me. I turned to my saviour. 

“Chris!” He ran up to me and pulled me into a hug so warm I felt like I could cry. The Handler scowled and walked away. 

“Are you okay?” Chris asked. I nodded rapidly into his shoulder. “You’re freezing. Do you need a jacket?” I nodded even faster. He pulled away from the hug and I mourned the loss of heat. “Alright, let’s go.”

* * *

“That looks too big,” Chris observed. I pulled up at the sleeves but they were just long enough to hang past my fingertips. 

“Why do you have to be so tall?” I asked. He snorted. 

“I’m not even that much taller than you, don’t try to pull that with me.” He slapped me on the back, which felt strange over the scales, but he didn’t seem to notice. My collarbone, however, didn’t appreciate the jolt much and I yelped, clamping a hand over it. Chris jumped back, holding his hands up. “God, sorry, did I break the stitches?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, grinning to hide gritted teeth. 

“That’s good.” His eyes went dark, and I could tell he was thinking. 

“What?”

“I’m going to kick Mark’s ass.” My eyebrows shot up. 

“Wait, why?”

“What do you mean, why? He stabbed you in the chest, do you think that’s okay?” His voice was getting louder and louder. I didn’t like that. 

“He wanted to rile up the dragon, though, he had a reason for it,” I said, but it sounded like a weak excuse even to me.

“Why, because dragons are so full of empathy? They’re monsters, why would they care if some kid gets stabbed in the chest?” He threw his hands up in the air. “Just because he has a crown doesn’t mean Mark can do whatever he wants. Someone needs to call him on it.”

“You train dragons to fight each other to the death as a career,” I said. “You’ll look like a hypocrite if you try to make a point of that.”

“They’re reptiles, not people,” Chris said. “And besides, you shouldn’t be on the receiving end of violence at all. It doesn’t matter what I or anyone here does for a living.”

“Thanks for the coat,” I muttered, pulling at the sleeves again. I turned and walked out of the room. He caught my arm over where the Handler had gripped me and I bit back a yell. 

“Why were you trying to hide from me when I was coming into the room earlier?” he asked. I was glad he couldn’t see my face as I pulled my arm from his hand. 

“Self-conscious,” I said, and my face burned from the half-lie. I walked away from the room, and the second I turned the corner I broke into a sprint. 

If only he knew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [INCOMPREHENSIBLE SHRIEKING]


	14. Squalls

Flashes of green darted between the faded white pillars. I grunted as I slammed my tail into one of the smaller ones, knocking it against several others and watched with amusement as they toppled like dominoes. Greenie yelled something to me just after the last pillar crumbled down with large chunks of stone breaking off in all directions. I ignored his voice, instead directing my focus in favour of the green smears of blood on the ground that led me straight to him. 

He was standing still, chest heaving rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. I backed up, weaving through the stone carefully with my tail dragging over the tossed up snow. Charging forward, I threw my body into a large pillar and waited as it fell right on top of the green dragon. He yelped and thrashed around under it, carving deep claw marks directly into the stone. I stood on the fallen pillar, walking down it until I was standing directly over Greenie.

“You know, I don’t care if I kill you. You need to stop being reckless.” I grimaced briefly after. It wasn’t necessarily true, and I didn’t want to come off sounding like I  _ wanted _ to kill him. Still, he was starting to piss me off. I needed him for a lot of shit, I couldn’t exactly help him if he snapped my neck.

He coughed, and I caught a glimpse of dark green specks splattering onto the dirt. I bounced on the pillar, and a nauseating crack echoed from the dragon beneath it. 

“You motherfucker! Fuck!” he fumed, tail thumping against the ground repeatedly. Hopping off of the pillar, I pushed it off of him and watched as he lay mostly motionless. He seemed to close his eyes and take a few strained breaths before spitting out a few more curses and struggling to pull himself to his feet.

“You’re goin’ to get your ass beat if you don’t get it together,” I said, then only partially regretted it. He looked pretty fucked up. Whoops. 

He gaped at me with blood leaking out from between his fangs. I stared back at him, wondering if I ruptured a lung and listening to the quickly approaching footsteps. The boy skidded to a halt to pat at Greenie’s chest, and the dragon let out a half-assed snarl that looked like it pained him more than anything. 

The two talked in a hushed manner, glancing back at me every few seconds or so. I rolled my eyes and wandered away. I didn’t have anything personal planned, I haven’t for the past three months, and they’re still wasting my time. From on top of one of the pillars, I could hear the man’s voice chime into the conversation. He whistled, calling out for me to go back to them.

I snorted, walking as far from them as I could and resting against one of the walls. The man whistled again, the sound piercing my ears in a painful way. Which, I guess that’s what he was going for. It gets a dragon’s attention, but it also pisses them off. As soon as he came back into view I rolled my eyes. He had his eyes locked on me, hands up to his mouth, breathing in.

Swinging my tail into a pillar, I watched him jump back, almost tripping as he scrambled away from it. He shouted something to me, sprinting in my direction. I turned to fly up, almost colliding with several of the stone ‘trees’. I could hear more shouting as I landed on the tallest pillar I could find. Etis, these things were unstable. The stone swayed and threatened to fall under my weight or even the slightest breeze. Now that I thought of it, the breeze wasn’t slight at  _ all _ . I dug my talons into the chalky stone. The collar around my neck tingled and began to spray purple sparks. I hissed and lost my balance as my muscles seized up. 

I thrashed mid-air, trying to move my wings in any way that would slow the descent to no avail. I crashed onto the ground, my lungs exhaling in one sharp breath as dust flew up around me. Impact aside, I couldn’t feel when I gasped for air. My leg twitched, sending bolts of pain up my thigh. I choked on the dust, not noticing the push that was given to one of my wings. 

I rolled onto my stomach slowly, scowling. The man looked at me, nudging my snout with his foot. I opened my mouth to snap at him, only being stopped by the spasms that shot through my neck and face. Greenie lumbered over to me, sniffing at my collar as small bursts of sparks flew off from time to time. I growled at him, my vocal cords feeling shot from the shocks.

* * *

It felt like hours before I was able to move well enough to fight Greenie again. With most of the pillars knocked out of the way, we had enough room to properly fight without having to worry about any more cracked ribs. It was still too late for us to be unscathed, though. He had large bandages secured tightly to his chest as if that could help an internal injury. It was almost as if the man had no real concern for our health. He really just wanted money, didn’t he? Typical.

I lunged at the green dragon, muscles protesting at the continual stress. He jumped right back at me, ramming his head into my chest and throwing me back. My own move, used against me. I would be offended but I was currently trying not to die. 

I wrapped my wings around him and brought him down with me. We rolled into a stray pillar, sending it down near the two humans. The yells from them were lost in the loud screech that Greenie let out when I kicked him in the chest. 

I pushed his wings on his left side into the ground, holding him in place the best I could while I used one of my wing-talons to hold his neck in place. I tore at the scales behind the horns on his head. It seemed to throw him off guard, but I really just wanted it to hurt. 

And hurt it did, or so it seemed. Greenie growled and thrashed his right wings furiously, throwing dust and snow into the air. I bit down on one of the horns with just enough force to feel it crack slightly in my jaws. I pushed his snout into the ground repeatedly, and he sputtered and went limp, snarling at the humans that watched from the sidelines. 

I hopped away from him. Greenie huffed and got to his feet, moving his left wings around experimentally.

“Don’t fucking do that.”

“You choked me out before, don’t tell me what to do.”

* * *

I chewed lazily on the borderline rancid chunk of meat the boy brought. He was still outside the cage, talking to the man who stood by the door. The chain tugged at my neck every time I raised my head. I dryly wondered why they gave me a shorter one, but Greenie was having the time of his life. He was sitting by the bars with a  _ much _ longer tether. I didn’t know much of the humans’ language, but I did catch the words ‘results’ and ‘brackets’. They were fucking toying with us at this point.

As soon as the cage was latched, I shuffled closer to the wall to get away from the green dragon. He stretched out on the ground, taking up as much space as his newfound freedom would permit, probably only losing more body heat. I scoffed. He was really playing favourites.

Etis, I hated him. 

“Keep fightin’ like that and you’ll lose your head,” I grumbled. He cracked open one of his eyes and glowered at me through the skull.

“It’s not like it matters,” he said. “I’m going to die here anyway.” I scoffed. The spikes clinked quietly as I rolled my tail against the floor. If he was a quitter I swore I was going to murder him myself and get a less useless cellmate.

“You say that like the fight’s already been lost,” I said. 

“Isn’t it?”   


“Depends, have you surrendered?” He considered my words.

“I guess not,” he mused. “Fine, then I fight day in and day out until I die? Yes, this sounds like a perfect plan, don’t mind me as I jump into a lava pool.”

“Look, I’m not the most optimistic person, but you can’t just admit defeat because you don’t like how things are goin’, Anyone who’s fought before can tell you that. I’m not going to give you some shitty speech about ‘never give up’ and ‘chase your dreams,’ but I will tell you, here and now, that you are more than capable of getting out of here alive if you just try,” I said. My throat was seizing up by the end of my little talk from overuse, which was ironic.

Greenie hadn’t looked away or blinked, staring at me with contemplative eyes I recognised from my own reflection. When he eventually tore his gaze away, it was with an air of acceptance, and not the roll-over-and-die kind. I counted that as a win, considering how that was the first time I tried to speak to someone longer than a sentence or two at a time. 

“So, what were you and the helmeted asshole talking about?” I asked. He tilted his head to the side and rubbed at his chest before pressing it back to the cold ground. That was why he was laying like that, then. Icing the wound. 

“According to arena statistics, only a small percentage of attendees actually bet on the fights,” he said. “Apparently bigger spectacles attract bigger bets, so I’ve been asked to put on a show.”

“Really?” I said flatly. “And are you?”

“I don’t really want to, but I also don’t want my head on a platter.” He shook out his wings and I envied the space. “You’re going before me, though, so maybe you should try doing something exciting. Maybe then they’ll give us a bigger cage.” I snorted.

“Sure they will.” He had a point, though. Even with his longer chain, Greenie was still cramped in this tiny cell of ours. Neither of us could stand up properly in here, and we had to pin our wings close to our sides if we wanted to so much as move around. 

“Etis, I hate it here so much,” Greenie muttered, tucking his snout under his tail.

“I want to see this whole place in embers.” With those words, I curled in on myself and let my thoughts dance with ideas and possibilities. There were so many variables and admittedly not much time.

A plan began to pull together, a plan that could either be our salvation or our damnation.

That was just going to have to be a chance I was willing to take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in many places in america, it's legal for a minor to sell feet pics with parental permission


	15. Hook Echo

I watched with tired eyes from the hall as the wyvern was released into the arena. It was noon, but the sky was dark with the churning storm and snow fell in sheets. Despite this, as the man said, the show must go on. 

The wyvern stretched out his wings and back much in the same fashion as a cat before licking his tusks and giving me a cool look. He had assured me he would be fine and that this was nothing he couldn’t handle, but I couldn’t deny the inkling of fear for him as he gazed at the barred doors at the other end of the arena.

A call from the crowned man up on his platform and they burst open. At first, I couldn’t see any dragon there whatsoever, until I caught the faintest sight of a flash of blue wings zipping around the outer ring close to the nets. Some sort of lightning dragon, probably. Definitely air domain. Very small, very dextrous, and very fast. The wyvern was in for trouble.

He seemed to notice this at the same time I did, as his eyes widened ever so slightly and he lowered his stance, tail lashing back and forth in broad strokes and kicking up dust. The blue smudge changed direction every second, next to untraceable without a keen eye. The only real telltales were the small whips of breeze that swept around snow as it fell.

Out of nowhere, the wyvern snapped at the air and in his jaws was caught a wiry cyan amphithere that writhed and screeched. It flung its head back and spat something electric blue into the wyvern’s eyes. He grunted, stumbling back, giving the amphithere the opportunity to slip away.

The wyvern clawed at his eyes, the grunting turning into growling and then something between panic and anger, the first I had heard either from him. In the meantime, the amphithere once more became a blur, darting around the ring and landing hits with its stinger-like tail. 

I could see it on his face, the wyvern was annoyed. He was also blinded. Some small part of me wondered if this was the end of him, but I silenced it. He wasn’t the type to be defeated by an overgrown pixie wasp.

He cocked his head to the side, and even with his eyes covered he seemed to track the movements of the amphithere. His tail twitched, his head slowly turning from side to side in sync with his prey. A pursuit predator, I realised. The chase and endurance were his game. He really got the short end of the stick in a tiny arena like this.

He stood, snorting out puffs of steam to the chilled midday air. The amphithere had yet to make another attack, and the crowd was getting impatient. They couldn’t see the calculating tilt to his wings, the subtle squint as he shifted his feet. They all gasped in surprise as he lunged into the air and caught the amphithere neatly between his tusks.

This time, he didn’t give it time to escape. The crunch of bones and the faint impact of scales on stone echoed around the ring. Silence cast its cheeky shadow over the valley itself, until the wyvern, still blinded to the world, issued a defiant roar accompanied by a burst of steam from his mouth. And just like that, the audience was screaming and howling up a storm.

I knew he hated it, probably more than I did, but there was the slightest smile that pulled at the corners of his bloodstained mouth. 

“Give me a real challenge,” he bellowed, flaring his wings. “This is pathetic.”

He hated these constraints, I could see it in him. He lived for the thrill.

He lived for the victory.

He lived for the blood.

* * *

“I’m goin’ to kill that dragonfly all over again,” the wyvern snarled. The rat boy dabbed a wet cloth at his eyes, and he hissed. Apparently, whatever it had spat onto him burned like acid. His tusks were still stained blue from the blood, which was an interesting look for him.

“What, was one time not enough for you?” I said with a slight grin.

“ _ Lame _ ,” he growled, and the boy hopped back, throwing his hands up as the wyvern bucked his head, shaking it off. It didn’t do anything, but he seemed moderately less foul-tempered.

“You’re fresh meat, the handlers didn’t want to throw you up against something crazy so early on,” the boy said. “You had a pretty good audience reception, though, so next time will probably be a little more intense.” The wyvern turned to him, eyes still covered with neon blue goop but undeniably terrifying nonetheless.

“Never call me fresh meat again,” he said. The boy stammered out an apology and he permitted him to continue dabbing. “So.”

“So?” I replied.

“You’re up tomorrow. How’re you feelin’? Still goin’ to fight like a dumbass or are you goin’ to actually play to your strengths?” He said this with an air of humour, but the implications were much, much more serious.

“We’ll see,” I muttered. A part of me was resigned that I would have to commit another murder, while a different part cackled with bloody glee. I wasn’t sure how to feel either way.

“If you chicken out I’m breakin’ these chains and killin’ you myself, you hear me?” he said with his infinite charisma. 

“You instil me with such confidence,” I said. The boy smiled and reached out to pat my snout, but I jerked away. The look he gave me was almost… one could say devastated. I don’t think it mattered to me. Perhaps it did, but too much.

“You better win,” the wyvern grumbled, settling his chin down on his talons, ignorant to what had just happened. Or maybe he didn’t care. Probably both.

* * *

I was awoken by the sounds of whimpering. 

Sleep had not been easy for me to find, and based on the intense quiet that devoured the halls, I would hazard a guess it was still early. But my attention was seized by the source of the panicked sounds, almost like a hatchling having a bad dream. To my surprise, it was coming from the wyvern. 

His eyes, cleared of the blue, were screwed shut, a look of pain cast over his face. He talons curled in and out, and his tail twitched ever so slightly. 

I hesitated, eyes fixed on the prone form of the wyvern. He drew into himself further, a soft sound close to a sob or maybe a whimper escaping from his lips. Something in my chest twisted and I took a step towards him. He would hate me for it, but I couldn’t just  _ leave _ him like that. 

Guided by some blind instinct and faint memories of what Sapnap would do for me when I got nightmares, I crouched down and leaned into his side. What little fire there was in my blood wouldn’t be enough to warm him the way Sapnap would, but nonetheless, the wyvern leaned back. The whimpers and twitching faded back, and the tension that screwed his eyes closed and his body hunched fell away or at least lessened. Every now and again, I would hear a shaking breath or the grinding of claws against the stone. 

I draped my wings over him like that would protect him from whatever plagued him in his own mind. I rested my chin on my talons and fell asleep that way, knowing the morning would only bring trouble. But, with the wyvern at my side, as much as I was comforting him, he was doing just as much for me.

There wasn’t much else to hold on to.

* * *

My competitor was already in the ring. I could hear it and the audience’s cries, and I swallowed the bile in my throat. Before I had left, the wyvern gave me a last few words of warning.

“Don’t let me down,” he said, then smacked me with a wing. He hadn’t been thrilled waking up with me on top of him. I sported a fun bruise on my neck from it, but it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t heal with time. That is if there was any time for me to be had. 

Now, the rat boy unfastened the nets from over my wings. He reached out a hand but hesitated. I nudged my snout against it, and a small smile curled his lips. 

“Don’t die,” he said, then scampered to the bordering hall. At that, the doors slammed open and I was once more staring into the snow-covered ring cast in haunting tones from a fleet of torches and braziers. At the other end stood my competition, a stocky dirt-brown drake that looked like it could snap my neck with a flick of the talon.

“Welcome!” he bellowed, and I felt the stones shift beneath me. Earth domain, fantastic.

I raced out of the holding room and immediately leapt to the sky, flashing my scales in the limited light. They’d been turning darker in my time here, now the colour of pines where they used to be shining emeralds. As I rose up to the nets, I almost blended into the blackened night sky. The cold nibbled at my wingtips in a friendly greeting.

The drake didn’t seem amused by my tactics, so he did what all earth dragons love to do and launched the floor of the arena straight up at me.

Idiot.

I pulled into a tight turn and dodged around, and when more rocks continued to come, I continued to dodge. It was ironic that the wyvern was better at aiming than the actual earth dragon, something I considered bringing up to him later. Looking down to where he sat, he gave me a dry look that said, ‘stop screwing around.’ I presented him a bright smile and dove down, claws outstretched.

The drake hadn’t expected that something I could deduce from the ear-splitting shriek he managed to make when I snatched his shoulders and tossed him into the wall like I would with a deer against a tree. 

He rolled over, coughing roughly. When he looked up at me, executing a rather complex set of twirls and spins, I could see the malice in his eyes. Good, maybe now he’d get creative. Every bone in my body itched to pin him down and tear him into ribbons, but I knew that would put me at a serious disadvantage. I didn’t want the wyvern seeking out a necromancer just to yell at me, so I chose to resist the bloodlust and continue on with what I was doing.

The drake cracked his neck and brought a talon onto the ground. The impact ran deeper than the stone, though, and thick, tall pillars erupted out of the ground. One managed to clip me in the side, something I normally would have managed fine against but my recently-cracked ribs disagreed.

I fell to the ground, cradling my side. Coughs wracked my body and I spat out a gob of thick, almost-black blood. 

The crowd seemed to think this was the highest form of entertainment since the invention of the mandolin and made their pleasure known to everyone within a five-mile vicinity. In the meantime, the drake stalked through the rows of pillars towards me as I suppressed the pain enough to function. He himself wore a limp, one that I gave him.

“You hear them,” he growled. “Are you ready to give them what they want?” He dug his talons into the stone, and I lowered my head. I lightly touched my skull mask with a claw tip, watching him contemplatively. Earth drake… it was too easy. Well, if I could manage it with a broken ribcage. 

“Oh, I’m here for the show,” I said and pounced him, taking his neck in my jaws and pulling him up in the air. His scales were too thick for me to break through directly, that I knew. So, I did the next best thing and carried him up kicking and screaming to the top of the arena. His claws carved deep gouges in my chest, but I ignored the pain and kept moving.

When we reached the apex, I held him out in front of me, my talons digging into his shoulders almost through the scales to keep a grip. I offered him my sweetest smile and threw him up into the net, watching with satisfaction as his shrieks resumed, plummeting back down to the earth that gave him power.

I dove alongside him, pulling back to level and circling back around to him as the impact left him a twitching mess. Still alive, then, but barely.

The crowned man grinned at me and gave me a thumbs-up. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I landed beside the drake and looked into his beetle-black eyes as they bulged in silent agony. I rested a talon on the side of his head and twisted it sharply. I hated killing this way, but trying to dig through the neck plates to get to skin was a marvellous waste of time.

I stepped back from the broken body and glanced around the arena. My blood roared for more, for a kill without restriction, but I pushed it back to sit next to where the pain was coiled in the back of my mind, poised to overwhelm me the mere second I let my walls falter. I scolded myself for letting down my guard so much and taking as many hits as I did. A lot of it was to make the fight seem closer, but not  _ that _ close.

Humans swarmed me, applying my bindings and leading me more than a little forcefully to the infirmary for the fifth time that week, but I caught the wyvern’s glance before I left the arena. The crowd was chanting something I didn’t understand, and the wyvern was smiling. 

I smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dream? more like,,, more like nightmare, am i right? i'm right, right


	16. Downburst

I dragged my tail along the ground, eyes barely holding themselves open. My talons were caked with mud and melting snow, making my body feel heavier than it should. I shuffled into the cage, the muzzle being removed as I fell onto the ground and tether being attached. Greenie seemed mostly unbothered other than his still sore ribs that made him wince with every breath.

I pressed myself closer to the wall and wrapped my wings around myself to conserve any heat I could. I contemplated not sleeping that night just to keep the six-winged freak away from me. He scratched at the bruise on his neck with a grimace. Waking up with my cellmate practically on top of me wasn’t something that made me overly thrilled. I guess it was a nice gesture, though I don’t know what it was for.

Oh, wait. The dream.

I brought one of my wings up to cover my face, recalling more of the other morning. It was nice to not be freezing, and the wing draped over me was… comforting. Part of me felt bad for hurting him, but only part. I still didn’t like him because of his impossibly huge ego though. That being said, the same part of me that felt bad felt, what was it? Lonely?

Crushing that feeling was much harder than I thought. Etis, I just wanted to sleep, but the recurring thought of feeling like something was missing paired with the fear that the dream would come back kept me constantly moving around before I stopped and laid down in the futile hope that maybe I would be able to rest. Greenie was glancing back at me every few seconds it felt like. Maybe he thought I was asleep by then judging by the soft dragging of a chain against the floor.

He was like a goddamn cat, to be honest. It was as if he was just waiting for me to have another nightmare. Greenie moved to lay a few feet from me, and I couldn’t bring myself to stop him. 

What was his name, really? I’d never given it much thought, but the name ‘Greenie’ was bound to become confusing, wasn’t it? Even if it was, there was nothing else I could call him. There wasn’t anything noteworthy about him other than the instinct to protect me from something that was  _ in my head _ .

Dreams. That was something I could connect to only him. I scowled and huffed at the suggestion. No, because what kind of name would ‘Dream’ be? It was unique in the most boring way. Just from a single instance where he thought I was weak. And yet, it fit. More than I wanted to admit.

And despite all my internal complaining, I didn’t protest when he settled beside me. He wasn’t warm by any means, but he was there. I shuddered slightly, but his presence both twisted and loosened something deep in my chest. 

I hesitated when he draped his wing over me, keeping the other two folded against his side. He inched closer to me, just barely, and I could feel anxiety begin to poke sharply at my chest. It wasn’t long before his breathing evened out, his body relaxing as sleep overtook him. I raised my head and nudged him, making sure he was asleep before I took a deep breath.

I used a wing talon to raise his head up slightly, moving to lay mine down on the floor and putting my wing back down, leaving Greenie’s chin to rest on me. The weight was slightly uncomfortable at first, but it made me feel… safe? I brushed the feeling away and closed my eyes.

Sleep didn’t come easily, but it came nevertheless.

* * *

Wind danced over my scales and I dipped my head to feel the buffet against my spikes. My wings stretched out and covered the sky in their enormity, sending me sailing over the clouds and the mountain peaks. The feeling was utter liberation, sunlight playing with the broken clouds and the cold air in my lungs. I didn’t need to touch the ground, the sky was my home.

Dream was there, too, flying in loops around me with a stupid smile on his face. Even navigating the tides of the sky, there was a certain peace that settled in my heart. It was like resting next to a warm fire, the heat spreading over my body and making me feel less alone.

There was a faint whistle and Dream snarled in startled pain. When I turned to him, he was looking down at an arrow lodged between his chest plates. Then came another whistle, and then another, and another. Soon, there was nothing but arrows flying at us from every direction. When I looked below there weren’t any humans I could see, and yet the arrows still came.

There were too many to dodge, and my wings became more of a liability than an advantage. I kept trying to fly up and out of range, but nothing I tried to do seemed to give me any ground. Even Dream, with this as his specialty, couldn’t get anywhere. Our undersides were coated with arrows, and I could feel the blood trickling down. We couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

Dream fell first. I, too, soo n after. The ground was as unforgiving as ever, the thick blankets of snow doing little to soften the fall. Several of the arrow shafts snapped on impact, while others only drove deeper into me. I wanted to roar, I wanted to do something, but I was helpless.

A man strode out of the forest, wearing a dragon skull mask with shards of precious gems driven into it like a crown. He swung a sword by his side, and walked past me to where Dream was struggling to stand. He kicked him onto his side and readied the sword overhead.

The man brought the blade down on Dream’s neck, and I woke up.

I surged up, knocking aside Dream’s wing. His wing. He was alive. He was alright.

I turned to him, and he was laying there, perfectly intact, skull fixed to his face, burying his eyes in shadow. On his other side lay the boy, covered in layers of wings. He was shivering. 

My talons were shaking, and my wings kept curling in on myself, regardless of if I wanted them to or not. There were scratches in the floor where I had been laying, and they looked deep. My heart pounded at breakneck speed, and I closed my eyes, trying to pull it back down. 

Something brushed my tail as it wrapped and unwrapped around my feet. I jumped, preparing for a fight, but it was only Dream’s wing. He had raised them, and I could see the glint of his eyes through the skull. An invitation.

I took a deep breath and stepped back under the wings, over aware of the risks it felt like I was taking. I settled down, my wings and tail tight against my body. When he lowered the wings back over me, my breath caught in my throat and I screwed my eyes shut. I loosened up, just a touch.

His chest rumbled, and I wanted to laugh. What an odd trio we were.

I didn’t get any more sleep, but this was good enough. For now, at least.

* * *

The muzzle bit into my face more than usual as we were led to the observation hallway. The boy had a hand on my shoulder the whole time, though he had to lean up to reach. He kept giving me looks, which I ignored. I had noticed he was wearing a scarf, and every now and again I’d see the slightest bit of purple poking out before he adjusted it. 

Dream hadn’t said a word to me, but it wasn’t too far from normal. His tail brushed my wing, and I tapped back. It was a strange sensation, the feeling of being  _ felt _ . 

We sat beside each other, and the boy settled between us as we looked out in the arena. Neither competitor had entered yet, but the snow around the door closer to us was already melting. Fire domain, definitely, and a strong one at that. How they’d managed to get someone that powerful in this place was beyond me. 

“Did they get someone new?” Dream asked, his words slightly distorted from the muzzle. The boy nodded.

“Yeah, Chris said some of his guys caught a big one yesterday. They think he’s magma, a big nasty one. He was sleeping when they found him so they got the jump, easy.” He looked at the man standing in front of the doors. “After Ripper got scalerot, he needed another player since the two-headed dragon still only counts for one. They think this new one should be a pretty good replacement, though I guess we’ll have to see after today.”

“Who’s he going up against?” I asked, wincing as the tight leather cut into my jaw.

“I can’t remember, I think it’s an origin air domain or at least heavily air-based. All I know is that she’s a nasty one,” he said. “If she kills him, Chris isn’t going to be happy.”

I bit back a retort and watched the doors creak open at the other end of the arena. A weathered, scarred dragon walked out, her posture hunched but muscles still rippling under her indigo scales. She had two legs and four wings, and she moved with the fluidity of something between water and air. The scattered snow that fell drifted away from her scales, and, as she stretched her wings, flared with the movements. 

She stared at the door at the other end expectantly. There was resignation in her eyes, but I knew well the ferocity that could come from the drive of survival and instinct.

The doors slammed open and heat flooded through the arena, instantly melting most of the snow to water. The dusty stone was now slick with mud. The dragon that lumbered out bore six legs, the second set of which looked like they had once been wings, but all that remained to tell the story were fins lining the lower leg. His tail and back were lined with ridges like mountain peaks, and his four eyes blazed furiously. He was colossal, a giant of a dragon that reached close to halfway up to the net at the tallest of his ridges. He had to be twenty feet tall at least.

He roared at the other dragon, who seemed taken aback by her challenger. She immediately took to the air, threads of water trailing her tail as she flew.

There was a certain degree of disinterest Dream, the boy, and I carried while watching the ensuing battle. It may have been the shared exhaustion, but the battle wasn’t that compelling.

“The magma dragon’s too slow,” Dream observed. “He needs to pull out some tricks or he’s going to get stabbed fifty times in the back.”

“We’ll see,” the boy said. 

Dream’s estimation wasn’t far off. The air dragon would swoop and shards of ice would bury themselves into the magma dragon’s scales. They didn’t seem to do a whole lot, though, but the air dragon would figure that out soon enough.

The magma dragon seemed to be growing in impatience and irritation. He planted his feet on the ground and between the cracks of his chest plates began to emanate a rich gold glow. The air was getting unbearably hot, and he spread his jaws to release a blast of lava that the air dragon narrowly avoided. It coated the walls and the floor, melting everything it touched before it slowly cooled. 

I tilted my head in appreciation. He could wear her out if he kept that up. 

The air dragon swooped down, talons outstretched. She raked her claws down his face and he reached up to swat at her, but he was too slow so she circled around again. He blinked steaming crimson blood out of his left eyes, and grit his teeth.

“There goes my depth perception,” he said, rubbing his eyes with a talon. I snorted. The boy jolted and stared up at me. Dream joined him.

“What?”   


“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before,” the boy said with wonder. I blinked. I couldn’t even remember the last time I laughed. I purged the thought from my mind; the fight just got interesting.

The arena itself was starting to melt, but despite it all the magma dragon was taking more hits than he was landing. The air dragon was pulling snow down but it kept vaporising from the heat. To compensate, she would divebomb him and slowly wear away at his back. Blood was running down his sides. He wasn’t going to win this.

Dive after dive drove them back to our corner of the arena. The heat was so thick and strong I was starting to grow concerned about our chains melting to us, but Dream looked vastly unconcerned. The magma dragon’s hind legs were almost pressed to the wall. With a flick of his tail, the entire hall could be wiped out. 

There was panic in his wide eyes. He was cornered, and he was running out of options. 

He had also made me laugh, as shitty as the joke may have been.

The air dragon dipped into another dive, and I growled. It wasn’t a loud growl, but it would be heard in the arena. She balked before making impact with the magma dragon, and he leapt on the opportunity by body slamming her into the lava.

While the screeches died down, the magma dragon gave me a side glance that could have been thankful. He nodded at me. I nodded back.

* * *

“You didn’t have to help him,” the boy said, unfastening my wings. I gazed down at him.

“A growl barely constitutes as helpin’,” I said. Dream gave me a look, so I pretended he didn’t exist. “Hey, when are we gettin’ a bigger cell?” The boy frowned.

“I’ll have to talk to the Handler.” He pulled at the sleeves of his coat. “He should be in a good mood so hopefully he’ll say soon. If you’re lucky you’ll be close to one of the fire dragons.”

“Maybe we’ll get to be next to your new friend,” Dream said, poking me with a talon. I rolled my eyes at him. 

“Shut up.”

“Sure, when you don’t smack me in the face with your spikey-ass tail every time you stand up to get a drink of water.”

“Fair enough.” I shook my head, watching as the boy left the cell with nets and chains slung over his shoulder. “Be careful out there. They’re getting worse around your neck.” He winced, his face pained.

“I know,” he said. “It’s worse on my back. I think I’m… I’m growing  _ ridges _ .” 

“Any idea of the domain?” Dream asked, but the boy shook his head. 

“All I know is iridescent purple and ridges I haven’t looked at,” he said. “I need to get my hands on a mirror but it’s not like there’s a whole lot of those around here.”

“And what about your chest?” Dream said. The boy hung the chains up on their hooks and rubbed at his collarbone.

“It’s healing alright. Amy gave me a jar of stuff that smells like pine needles and cat puke, so it stopped hurting so much. I haven’t broken the stitches again, at least,” he said with enthusiasm, but it was at least a little forced. 

“Take care of yourself,” Dream muttered. The boy smiled.

“I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so maybe we forgot to update and then got distracted. sorry about that
> 
> on the bright side, lovvy and i have managed to get ourselves involved in a massive project with a bunch of other writers. don't get your hopes up yet, it's going to be a long, long time before we actually post any of it, but it's out there.
> 
> anyways, sorry again for leaving you all for a couple weeks. we'll try not to do that again. hope you guys liked the chapter and don't hate our guts!


	17. Roll Cloud

The wyvern and I were ushered into a new cell by a group of men with spears. The room looked to be recently vacated, and there were several cracks in the walls accompanied by scratches and chips on the metal bars. We were freed from the restraints, longer chains attached to our collars. The wyvern settled down with the smallest smile on his face, burying his snout in a wing. 

Since our chains were lengthened before we were transferred, I had been woken up by the dragon’s almost nightly dream issues. He refused to talk about them, but I knew that it was something that wouldn’t go away anytime soon. I was scared, even if only a bit, about how he would fare on his own. With the new cage, we were much further apart, and I was worried about how it would affect him in the ring. He could get killed running on low sleep like he was now.

I sat down, glancing back at him every few minutes. He moved his wing out of his face.

“Dream?” 

I tilted my head, and it took him a few seconds to realise what he said. 

“Dream?”

“Nothing.” He turned away from me with a look like a rabbit freezing to hide from a swooping hawk. I wheezed out a laugh, moving closer to him.

“No, why did you say ‘dream’?” The wyvern didn’t respond, tail flicking around in annoyance. I laid down, eyes still trained on him. 

“...Maybe.”

“Why?” The wyvern snapped his fangs at me but begrudgingly uncoiled slightly. 

“Since you never told me what it actually was, it’s your name now.” 

“Fair enough.” I rolled onto my side, stretching my wings and legs, taking pleasure from the fact I actually  _ could _ . “Dream. I like the sound of that.” He growled faintly and went back beneath his wings. 

Watching the wyvern, it hit me how much we’d grown since we arrived. I realised with a grimace that he’d grown larger than me. The spikes on his tail and back looked to be duller from use in the arena, and both of our scales were much less healthy. Though, eventually, we’d shed all of our scales from now and have new ones grow in. An entire body of scales that rarely see sunlight were always unfavourable, and I’d seen it here before.

Most dragons needed plentiful sunlight to keep themselves from looking sick, especially those with a lot of fire in them. Dragons who were primarily earth generally seemed to look the same regardless of conditions as far as I’d seen. That being said, the magma dragon from a few days ago would have been interesting to see with new scales. 

I blinked a few times, thinking more about that dragon. He seemed to be entirely in control of his abilities, something rare in the ring. He knew what he was doing, which left a huge question about his age. He was definitely at least a century old, which already gave him an almost unfair advantage in terms of knowledge and maybe tactics. Etis only knew how much that drake knew about this place that the rest of us could only hope to learn. Maybe he’d watched it spring up, learning about disappearances and ring fights for as long as the arena had been in business.

Maybe he’d know how to get out.

* * *

I woke up expecting to be alone, but was pleasantly surprised to feel not one but two things pressing against my sides, one much smaller than the other. 

I curled my tail in around the boy and wrapped my wings over the wyvern. 

The morning was slow starting. We wouldn’t have any other duels for a while, and there weren’t any more scheduled today for anyone else, so it was only practice and milling about our new space, testing the bars and the limits of our tethers.

“I’ve been thinkin’ about trying out some aerial movements I can do in close quarters,” the wyvern said, dipping his wing-talons in the trough and watching the water drip back in, some freezing to the claws. 

“Anything risky?” I asked. He thought for a moment. 

“Not especially,” he said. “Nothin’ long-term, though. I think that’s going to become a bigger and bigger problem as we grow. For now, though, they should be good. That is, if they work.” I shoulder-chucked him in what I hoped would be interpreted as a friendly way. 

“We’ll see, right?” He hummed, shaking the ice from the talons. 

“I guess we will.”

Our way over to the ring from our new cage brought us by the newcomer’s, who looked to be sharing it with the two-headed dragon. All in all, too many personalities in one room. The ram-horned head and the magma dragon were yelling about… something. It was unclear. The head with the still-broken horn looked like he’d prefer to be anywhere else.

But, as we passed by, the magma dragon’s eyes brightened, and he gave the wyvern a tiny grin. The wyvern seemed uncomfortable at that, which I laughed at. 

He, in turn, did not appreciate this. 

* * *

Practice was quick, for once. We tested out our various ideas, some which were met with success, some not. The wyvern smacked me in the back of the neck with his tail, leaving us both with cuts from each other’s spikes, but we were fine. We survived. 

Going back to the cell, we caught sight of the boy with the Handler and the other man. They seemed to be having an argument, with raised voices and arms flying everywhere. As we were led by, I made eye contact with the rat boy, who gave me a desperate look. I glanced at the wyvern, who sighed, rolling his eyes, but nodded.

I bared my fangs behind my muzzle and growled, rearing back and pulling against the chains. The wyvern did much the same, and we were immediately swarmed by humans, the ones already around us yelling and brandishing their swords and spears. The Handler barked an order and pulled something out of the folds of his coat. 

“Fuck,” the wyvern grumbled before our collars burst into waves of sparks that ran down our bodies, sending us toppling to the floor. 

“...not finished here,” the Handler snapped at the other man and the rat boy before stalking over to us. He placed his boot on my side, pressing into the scars. Fortunately for me, I couldn’t feel much of anything right then, so I didn’t so much as flinch, aside from the post-shock twitches. 

The Handler leaned over me with a sneer that matched his helmet’s. 

“I’m surprised it took you this long,” he said in his broken Indati. I squinted a smug smile at him. 

“Next time we’re not going to make it so easy,” I said through the muzzle, fully bullshitting but trying to eke out a reaction. I got one, a narrowing of the eyes as he frowned. 

“You aren’t going anywhere.” With that, he drew back and motioned for the assembled humans to drag us back to our cell.

“That’s the last time I do something for you,” the wyvern muttered to me as he was pulled by. I managed a wheezing laugh before someone kicked me in the ribs, and I fell silent. 

Back in the cell, he gave me the cold shoulder. I didn’t mind  _ that _ much but being ignored when we were both stuck alone together recovering from being shocked wasn’t the best. It brought me back to our first days together, which was something I’d rather not return to.

“Thank you,” someone muttered, and the cage door creaked open then closed. The rat boy hopped over my tail then kneeled down beside me, rubbing the scales the Handler had stepped on. 

“What was that about?” the wyvern asked. The boy looked at the ground.

“The Handler’s leaving for a few days with Chris,” he said. “They’re going up to Port Town.” 

“Are you going with them?” I asked. He shook his head.

“No, they want me to stay.” He paused. “Well, Chris wants me to stay. The Handler doesn’t think I can take care of you guys while they’re gone.” Then he grinned. “But I’m staying now. I get to be with you guys, and we don’t have to worry about them for a while.”

“I’m assumin’ we’re not doin’ any duels in that time, then,” the wyvern said. 

“Not unless they get another guy in here to be a handler for you guys. I’m just an apprentice, so I can’t run that kind of stuff yet.” The rat boy shook his hair out, and it fell in his eyes. He was smiling so widely it looked like his face was going to split. 

“Thank Etis I can finally rest for once,” the wyvern muttered. I snorted, and he smacked me in the shoulder with his wing. 

“We’ve got a week to ourselves,” the rat boy said. He scratched behind my neck spikes. “Let’s make the most of it.”

* * *

They left in the morning. I knew this because the rat boy ran to our cell and yelled this, very loudly. The wyvern, begrudgingly sleeping by my side, did not share the enthusiasm. With a hearty laugh, I raised my head and watched as the boy half-walked, half-danced over to us. He settled between the wyvern and I with a grin.

“I’ve been wanting to talk with the new dragon. Might be able to, now that the Handler’s gone,” the rat boy said with bright eyes. I grimaced at the thought of him going anywhere near that thing. He didn’t seem mean or anything, but Etis, he was definitely an imposing presence. Though, there was something vaguely comforting about his general energy. What it was, I wouldn’t say even if I knew how to describe it.

I leaned down and rested my head in his lap, “No offense, but I really don’t want you going there. He just… doesn’t seem safe.” The rat boy rolled his eyes and sighed, resting his hands on my neck. The wyvern had surely fallen asleep again, one wing stretched out and damn near touching the opposite wall.

The rat boy leaned on me in a semi-hug, poking at the spikes on my neck with quiet humming. I didn’t recognise the song, but it was nice. Comforting. The boy was warm and I was happy.

In any other situation, I’d want to get away. But, there was something nice about the coldness of the stone floor and the wyvern pressed against my side, blanketed by my wings. The pressure on my neck kept me grounded. I needed more moments like this.

The song went on slowly. I could hear the small crackles in the rat boy’s throat as if he’d been yelling not long before. Stray tears from his eyes pattered lightly against my scales. If there was another reason for me to hate the Handler, this would probably be it. I didn’t have to be smart to know that he had something to do with this.

I brought my tail around him and pulled him in closer. I knew it wouldn’t help much but he wiped at his eyes and smiled at me. 

“This week’s going to be great,” he said in a wavering voice. I hummed, a low, rumbling sound. I was worried for him.

After all, we were all we had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oohhhoohoohhoohohohoohhohohohohooohohohohhoohhohooh [APE NOISES INTENSIFY]


	18. Cold Snap

I cursed under my breath, stumbling through the almost claustrophobic cage as an over-excited dragon weaved between my legs. Exasperated, I kneeled down and lightly shoved the dragon back, scrunching my nose at the unfamiliar softness of the feathers on its neck. The dragon chirped at me with a glance at the bucket of grossly slimy meat before he dove head-first into it, which wasn’t saying much, as his head was barely big enough to fit.

The dragon’s back was lined with a cruel combination of needle-sharp spikes and oddly placed purple and black feathers. I cut my hand pulling him from the food, shaking a few specks of blood onto his snout as I looked in the bucket to see if he’d taken much more than he was supposed to. He hadn’t, and I indignantly tossed another piece to him. He warbled and scurried back, overly large wings nearly hitting me.

“You’re a nightmare.” I stood and went for the door. The dragon didn’t do much else, sticking to climbing to his usual spot, chain dragging up the wall as his feet stuck to it. The cloth hammock in the corner swayed as the dragon crawled into it. I closed the door gently behind me, locking it and carrying the bucket a few cages down.

I could feel the heat from the six-legged dragon, listening to him talk idly to the two heads across the room. I walked in with a small smile at the two-headed dragon. The one with the broken horn returned it, but the ram horned grimaced. The larger dragon sent a soft, neutral growl my way. 

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked, setting the bucket in front of the six-legged dragon and dumping it onto the ground. 

“Wilbur keeps talking about fucking blue!” the head with a broken horn shouted. His voice seemed strained, though I didn’t have much time to think on it before the ram head was cackling maniacally. Fucking creepy.

I dug a small piece of dried meat from my pocket and tossed it to the two-headed dragon. The ram head caught it as soon as it was in range, much to the protest of his… brother? Regardless, they fought like brothers, and it felt wrong to call them the same. They  _ did  _ have two different brains. I watched them for a few more minutes. It wasn’t the best housing option, but it was good entertainment.

A harsh knock of metal on metal had me stumbling away from the bars. With a hand over my chest, I furrowed my brow at the person standing behind them. I opened the door and stepped out, tuning out the now muffled conversation of the magma dragon and the two heads. 

One of the other handlers, followed by a group of soldiers, walked past with a chained dragon. The dragon was long and wingless, feathers lining its back and a crest of feathers arching around its head. Its tail whacked my calf as they went by.

The handler in front of me, he looked new and nervous as hell. He was wearing strange green robes and a grey overcoat, with a weird green and white striped hat. “You’re Coral, right?” I blinked.

“You- you mean Karl?”

“Yeah, Karen.” The dragon in his arms squirmed, but when he looked down and tutted it stopped. “Anyways, that other guy, Jortson, he got hit by a boulder when riding down the mountain pass so you have me now until he can get back up on his feet.” I sputtered, staring at the man.

“He  _ what _ ?” 

“The other guy’s okay but I’m the temporary handler for now.” He held out a hand stiffly, shuffling the dragon over his shoulder. “You can call me Phil, or Philza if you want to be fancy.” I slowly took the offered hand, startleby the roughness of his palm, the oddness of his movements, the constrained energy he seemed to have, and how uncomfortable he looked in his own skin.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, pulling my hand away. 

“You as well.” He gave the magma dragon an odd look, then turned and continued down the hall. “Walk with me, yeah?” His accent was so strange, it was like something else entirely. I trailed him a few steps away. “So I come from out of town, I don’t really know much about the locals around here.”

“Where are you from, then?” I asked. We walked out into the arena.   


“Oh, you know,” he said. “Down south.” He set the dragon down on the ground and it coiled then uncoiled before unwinding out. It was a lot larger than I thought it was, even on this small man. It shook out its black and blue feathers and rose up, its head level with both of ours. “Ready?” The dragon nodded. Phil turned to me. “I think you should probably go up to the stands, unless you’d like to get a little singed.” I squinted a small smile and ran out of the ring and up to the seats. 

He didn’t look like much, that was for sure. His back was towards me, showing off the diamonds at the bottom of his heavy, lumpy coat as he put his hands on his hips. The dragon hissed and shook its feathers again, stirring up snow. It slithered up, and then further up into the air itself until it was flying, even without wings. 

True sky domain? That was rare, especially this far south.

It span once through the air then dove at Phil, its fangs outstretched. I found myself standing, leaning forward as the dragon drew in for the kill.

Phil sidestepped. That was it, just one move, but it was so close even the true air domain dragon couldn’t pull out of the dive, and instead slammed into the ground with a sickening crack. 

“Oh, sorry about that,” he said with surprising calm for a man who was just inches away from death. He squatted over the dragon, running a hand over its scales. 

“I need to work on that,” the dragon muttered. “Happens  _ every _ time.” Phil patted its side, smiling. I ran back down the stairs and into the arena. 

“Are you okay?” I gasped as I tried to catch my breath, looking between him and the dragon. 

“We’re good,” he said brightly. I made my way back into the ring mindlessly as the dragon stayed on the ground. Phil was knelt beside him now, talking in muffed Indati. 

Phil leaned back just as the dragon swiped at his head, almost playfully if the claws weren’t four inches long. He only succeeded in knocking the man's hat askew, allowing a much better view of his almost shoulder-length hair that was too light to be natural. He laughed and straightened it back out, giving me a side-eye that made me want to look away.

“Alright, playtime’s over, let’s get you back in your cage, yeah?” He stood, and the dragon coiled around his neck like a scarf. “Hey, look, we’re matching.” He pointed at my own scarf, and I looked down, pulling it up further around my throat self-consciously. 

“I- yeah.” He grinned cheerily and stood.    
  
“Come along, now, we have much to discuss.”

* * *

Phil was much more hands-on than the Handler. I would catch him speaking to the new captures early in the mornings, and it seemed as if he was more interested in the six-legged magma dragon than his actual job. Though, the two did get along fairly well, almost like old friends. It would be heartwarming if Phil wasn’t neglecting his job and leaving a good deal of tasks to me instead. He looked to be doing just enough work to stay in the Sovereign's good graces. 

Even so, he was much nicer. I felt like I was actually doing something, like I was important. Maybe it was the new tasks, or the fact that Phil actually congratulated me. The Handler was never that nice, he was always just mad. Phil was a nice change of pace. And, I didn't have to do Indati lessons anymore.

It was interesting. Phil didn't even have an accent when he spoke Indati to the dragons. It was only ever when he spoke to me or other workers that his voice sounded just different enough to put me on edge. He never noticed any of the comments on his accent, and if he did he never said anything. Everything about him was off in some way or another.

At least he knew what he was doing.

Everything felt almost like it was going great until I woke up to scales on my face and Chris banging on my door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can writers ghost their readers? because if so i think we ghosted you guys. sorry about that. insert ghostbur pun here. speaking of i can to the revelation that dustfall has existed for longer than wilbur’s been dead and i don’t know how to feel
> 
> anyways we’ll try not to abandon you guys again. 
> 
> promise (:


	19. Hypothermia

“Karl!” Chris shouted. I tore my eyes away from the mirror and looked at the closed door, then back at the mirror. My eyes were ringed in purple scales, iridescent in the torchlight. 

There was no way I could hide this.

My back twinged in an odd sort of pain I’ve never felt before, but I ignored it to pace throughout the tiny room. The pounding of Chris’s fist on the door made me wince with every impact, but I had to focus, I couldn’t panic right now, of all times.

I turned to my window.

It was big enough to climb out of if it came to it. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d have had to use it, 

“Karl, what’s going on, man, you’ve been sleeping all day. Open the door,” Chris called. I grimaced and slowly opened the frame, praying it wouldn’t creak. I breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t, and slipped out of the narrow gap.

The freezing evening air bit into my face, gnawing at my nose and cheeks. When I blinked, the stars seemed a bit brighter than normal, but soon clouds swept them over, turning the sky dark grey.

I inched across the ledge and dropped down, tousling my hair into my eyes and pulling the scarf up as far as it would go, as well as turning up the collar of my coat. Well, Chris’s coat. I walked down the hallways as fast as I could without breaking into a dead sprint, staying hunched over with my face downturned. At the people that would call to me and wave, I would flash a tiny, toothless smile. I kept running my tongue over my teeth, feeling them lengthen and sharpen in real-time.

The pains in my back were growing.

I stopped in front of the door to a cage, knocking against the bars softly. At the noise, the pink and green dragons poked up their heads from where they were huddled together to look at me. For a moment it was expectant curiosity until realisation dawned. They exchanged glances. 

“You need to run,” the green one said.

“But where,” I asked, the words feeling so  _ wrong _ in my mouth, over these new teeth, and yet all the more comfortable. The pink dragon tilted his head.

“They’ll kill you, or worse,” he said.

“I know,” I yelled, then covered my mouth with wide eyes. I glanced from side to side, but no one seemed to be around us at the moment. “Please, you have to help me.”

“Go northwest of here. There should be a valley, and a dragon there, an ancient. Tell him Clay sent you. Then go south to the reefs. Find George and Sapnap and tell them the same. Tell them I’m trapped here,” the green dragon said in a hurried voice. “Now run, and then when you can’t run any longer, fly.” I nodded, feeling my heart pound a tempo in my chest. 

“I’ll- I’ll come back for you,” I said, not sure what that would entail. The green dragon raised his chin, eyes piercing into me through the skull.

“Good,” he said. "Run.” 

* * *

My chest burned. My hands, my feet, my face, they were all numb, and the pains across my body were only growing worse. All I knew was that I had to run, I had to get out of there, I couldn’t let them catch me. 

I hadn’t even taken a horse, something I cursed myself, for now, my foolishness and panic having blinded me of my sensibilities. Frost bit at my nose and ears even with the scarf generously wrapped around my head.

I didn’t want to die.

But, I didn’t know how I could live. 

The cold was weighing down further on my shoulders as I hiked across the mountain pass, my layers doing little to keep out the cold. My adrenaline was fading, and I dreaded the aftershock. While the adrenaline was still going, though, I could feel the anxiety bubbling in my chest worsen. Would they hunt me down? Oh  _ gods _ , would they?

As the hours sifted by, or maybe they were only minutes that felt like hours, or days, or weeks, I wondered if I was close to where the Handler had gotten hit by that boulder. I wondered if Phil was going to take care of the green and pink dragons while I was gone. I wondered if Chris had followed me, or if he would hate me for what I was becoming. As if to mock me, the pain in my back spiked.

_ Yes, of course he would. He despises dragons. He’d despise me.  _

_ No, he wouldn’t hate you, he wouldn’t, you’re Karl, you’re not a monster.  _

_ The dragons weren’t monsters, either, so it doesn’t matter. _

_ He’s going to hate you, he’s going to hate you, he’s going to wish you were never born.  _

_ He wouldn’t. _

_ But he would. _

__ I stopped and looked down at my hands, hands that felt like blocks of ice. The fingertips were turning purple. With a fuzzy mind, I was all too quick to brush it off as scales even as I felt no roughness when I shoved them in my pockets. Maybe I’d succumb to the storm and they’d find my body after the spring thaw. They’d probably stuff me and put me in some sick collection, a unique specimen to be studied.

Sweat trickled down my back. Or maybe it didn’t. The chill that had settled into my bones was getting warmer. I smiled to myself, wrapping my arms around my front. It felt as if I were back in the Handler’s room during one of his too-long Indati lessons. Did I ever really learn from those? I don’t think I did. I couldn’t have learned anything from him at all, really. The Handler was a capable man, just not in the linguistics department.

My feet dragged in the rising snow. When did it start snowing? I could practically hear my bones creaking, even with my limited movement. Huh. I hadn’t moved in the past few hours. No, it had to be minutes, right? The sun was still in the same place. No, there’s no sun. Where’s the light coming from? I shivered violently as goosebumps rose all over my body. I wanted to go home. Not the arena, my  _ real _ home. Fuck, where even was home?

I sat down at the side of the path. Not path. Snow and rocks. I grimaced and leaned to the side to push a rock out from under me before nearly falling over as I relaxed again.    
  
I laughed and tossed a rock down the side of the mountain, watching it tumble down the cliff. Kind of like the Handler. Except he survived. That was funny. I fell into what felt like an uncontrollable fit, laughter bubbling from my throat for minutes. Seconds. Hours. My nails were blue then; I think I liked the colour. It kinda looked like tiny bruises on my fingers.

The snow felt soft, and when I laid back into it, it made my back hurt less, so I stayed there. My thoughts were slow, but I didn’t mind. I could stay here forever. It wasn’t so bad. No one could find me up here. I felt safer than I had in months.

As my mind faded, I caught sight of the moon rising over the horizon. I laughed at it.

“It’s all cloudy, how are you out right now?” I asked. Two stars twinkled down beneath it, and I reached out at them. The stars drifted from me, darting away at a moment’s notice. Everything pretty was always mean to me. Nah, the Sovereign wasn’t pretty. At least I didn’t think so. The healer, though. What was her name? Alice?

My hands were getting warmer by the second. I’d lost my sense of time long ago, and I didn’t even have the confidence to  _ say _ it was long ago. Time didn’t process.

Something warm wrapped around me. I was too tired to fight it. I wasn’t tired earlier. It was like falling asleep, and the ground was worlds more comfortable than my bed. I always liked sleeping in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol fucking idiot hahaha look at this fucking DUMBASS LMFAOOOOOOO


	20. Bombogenesis

The Handler’s friend slammed the iron door behind him, and it bounced back with a loud clang. I think he was staring at me, I wasn’t really looking, though the way the wyvern shuffled closer to me gave it away. It was a nice gesture, but I doubted I’d need protection, especially since the man still should’ve been injured. He was shouting. I couldn’t make anything out, but it was clear what he was going on about. 

“I know he fucking came here before he left.” He roughly grabbed one of my horns to jerk my head in his direction. “Where did you tell him to go?” He spoke in rushed Indati, and even the wyvern beside me seemed a tad lost with the jumbled words. Whether or not I couldn’t or just  _ wouldn’t _ answer, the man slammed his toe in my neck. The force made him stumble, which gave me just enough time to snap my jaws onto his foot. 

It wasn’t by any means easy to get through his shoe, but I managed. The wyvern snorted at the sight. Though, none of it lasted long, as the new handler came hauling ass through the door in record time. My jaw was locked, and I sure as hell wasn’t set on letting go anytime soon. As soon as the shorter man realised, he hastily jabbed at a spot just beneath my ear, and my mouth immediately snapped open. 

He dragged the injured man out, leaving him just beyond the bars before the Handler was in front of me again. He smacked my snout lightly, but hard enough to make me flinch.

“Have you lost your damn mind?”

My jaw tingled. Etis, if he hadn’t known that trick, I’d for  _ sure _ have torn his arm out of the socket. I didn’t respond, only turning to face the wall. My nose pressed against the cold stone, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from falling to the ground. I wasn’t scared, but something about him commanded respect. I didn’t have much of a choice but to comply, or risk something… worse. 

The wyvern noticed it, too, and he was lowering himself to the floor under the man’s stare. A sigh and the handler was kneeling beside me. He put a hand on top of my covered snout, and I managed to look back at him. He smiled.

“You’ve got a hell of a dad voice,” I muttered as he shook his head and patted my own. Of course, he wanted to know where the rat boy went, too. He was nice to us, but it was never smart to outright tell someone an escape plan.  _ Especially _ the person who was in charge of stopping you from escaping. 

With no answer, he only stood and walked out. I watched him throw the other man over his shoulder effortlessly like a sack of potatoes. The door was closed, but the click of a lock never came. The wyvern snorted as he nudged a small ring of keys towards me. Whether or not he meant to leave them, the Handler had to have seen them.

Damn shame I didn’t have thumbs.

* * *

I was awoken by the creak of the cell door as the handler stepped in and unfastened the tethers on both the my and the wyvern’s chains. He gestured for us to follow, and I couldn’t find it within myself to bolt, no matter how much I wanted to.

I found myself walking behind him, the wyvern on my tail as we made our way down the halls. It was dark out, still in the clutches of the late, late night or early morning. It must’ve been cold, because the wyvern kept as close to my side as he could’ve, shaking out his spikes in a slight shiver every now and again. 

The handler stopped in front of a looming pair of doors similar to the ones that led to the arena. The wyvern and I looked at each other, both of us taking hesitant steps back until he pushed the door in.

It was a small brush of warm air that cut through the frost that had found its way into me, pulling me into this dome much like the other except with a carpet of grass, a few twisting trees overshadowing a pond. The weather here defied the other of outside, despite the fact that this  _ was _ outside, the net open to the stars and the pale crescent moon. And yet, despite the mountains that still rang around us, piled with snow, here it was temperate, pleasant. 

The handler sat next to the tree, and the wyvern gave me another look before settling down beside him. I came with him, uncertain as to most everything that was happening. The air here smelled so old, like the earth itself was breathing. The handler scratched between the wyvern’s horns, humming softly to himself as he looked up at the sky. 

After a little while he glanced over to me. I could see that the wyvern’s eyes had closed and his chest was rising and falling evenly. It was odd to see him so at peace.

Then the handler reached out a hand to my snout.

“May I?” he asked in that oddly accented Indati of his. I nodded slowly, watching him move with careful precision, as if I were about to snap his arm off at any moment. I definitely could, but I waived the desire. For now, anyways.

He slowly pulled the skull off my face, setting it in the grass to the side. He squinted, and I felt suddenly self conscious, like I’d smeared honey all between my eyes. Then he laughed, and I felt significantly worse.

“Oh, don’t be worried,” he said. “I’m just curious. All the scales around your face have turned white except around your eyes. Was the mask to hide that?” I placed a talon atop the skull curiously, peering over it to look in the pond. He was right; my own face, cast ghostly pale save th two black dots stared back at me... it didn’t look like mine, all scarred and angry.

“No, it was for…” my voice died in the back of my throat. Why had I taken the mask? To hide? But no, I wasn't a coward. Was I? No, it was for the wyvern, accepting his gift. Right?

Something pressed into my side. I jumped, but it was only a hand. The handler’s hand. 

“Hey, it’s alright, mate,” he said. “Just hold on for a little longer, yeah?” He eyed my scars and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“What is this?” came a voice in even stranger Indati, and the Sovereign walked in past the door. His eyebrows drew together beneath his jeweled crown as his eyes settled down at where the handler sat. “And what do you think you’re doing?”

“What you won’t.” The handler stood, and the two exchanged glares that seared like the sun. 

The Sovereign strode over, the gauntlets over his hands clinking as he curled his fingers into fists. I was suddenly aware of how vulnerable we were. I didn’t like this feeling. 

_ Fear.  _

The wyvern was awake, I wasn’t sure when he had picked up his head, but he had. The Sovereign looked down at him though his snout came up almost to the other’s waist now. 

“You’re irresponsible,” he growled, a low rumble that rattled in my chest. He titled back his head and his red hair fell out of his eyes. 

“And this isn’t?” The handler slipped in between him and the wyvern, almost defensive. My talons buried themselves in the dirt as my spines and spikes raised. The tension was unbearable. 

“They’re ants to us, why should we care?” the Sovereign spat, and kicked me in the snout. The earth shook and both of them fell to the ground. Their eyes shot up to look at the snow-covered mountains and at the few mammoth snow drifts that slipped a few inches lower. 

“Wouldn’t want to have an avalanche,“ the handler said softly. “Etis knows how many people would be buried. Maybe even you.”

* * *

We were brought back to our cell after a few more strained minutes. My snout was still sore from both boots, but with the skull back in place no one would be able to see.

“What  _ was _ that?” I muttered after the handler’s footsteps faded.

“Do you think they’re-“ The wyvern cut himself off and looked at me. An understanding traded between us. “I see. Are you sure?”

“It would make sense for the handler,” I said. 

“But what about the Sovereign?” the wyvern asked. “He has no reason to do this, any of this.”

“Power, maybe. No, that can’t be right. What about ego?” I scraped my talon along the forehead ridge of the skull. “That’s all I can figure.”

“It’s the most plausible. Things like them, they’ve been known to build their hordes. What does that make us? Treasure?” The wyvern scoffed. “I’m not a toy.”

“I don’t think he shares the same view,” I replied.  _ Ants _ . 

“There’s no way we can get out of here, now,” the wyvern said. “Not unless those two battle it out and we jump on the chaos.”

“Well, I’m nothing if not an opportunist.” I curled against the wall, chains clinking as I settled. 

“What else can either of us be?” The wyvern placed his chin on his talons. “At least the one that’s turnin’ got out of here.”

“I hope he’s okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine giving a fic kudos and the authors call you a poor bastard
> 
> also look at these lads who made us art. give them likes  
> https://twitter.com/IDinkster/status/1354013858701033472?s=20  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CK83WXOFGXc/?igshid=yzhapwmh3d2s

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, guys. Lovvy and I are cowriting this beauty. There has been a surprising lack in Dragon!Dream fics, so we decided to fill the void. Hope you enjoyed!


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